Mythic Imagination Institute - Peter Beagle

Hugo Award winner Peter S. Beagle's "The Fable of the Moth" is part of a story cycle called "Four Fables" (the other three are "The Fable of the Ostrich," "The Fable of the Octopus," and "The Fable of the Tyrannosaurus Rex"). The complete cycle can be found in The Line Between. Personally-autographed copies are available from conlanpress.com.

Read more about Peter S. Beagle at peterbeagle.com

Also now available for Beagle fans: a new, digitally-remastered, 25th anniversary widescreen DVD version of the animated The Last Unicorn, featuring the voices of Christopher Lee, Mia Farrow, Alan Arkin. Jeff Bridges, Angela Lansbury, and Rene Auberjenois. If you buy from anywhere but Conlan Press, Peter receives NO money from the sale — but when purchased from Conlan Press he receives more than half the price! Unautographed and personally-autographed copies are available at conlanpress.com.

Return to Passages Menu

Subscribe to the Passages e-zine

Mythic Passages - the magazine of imagination

moths flying around a candle Once there was a young moth who did not believe that the proper end for all mothkind was a zish and a frizzle. Whenever he saw a friend or a cousin or a total stranger rushing to a rendezvous with a menorah or a Coleman stove, he could feel a bit of his heart blacken and crumble. One evening, he called all the moths of the world together and preached to them. "Consider the sweetness of the world," he cried passionately. "Consider the moon, consider wet grass, consider company. Consider glove linings, camel's hair coats, fur stoles, feather boas, consider the heartbreaking, lost-innocence flavor of cashmere. Life is good, and love is all that matters. Why will we seek death, why do we truly hunger for nothing but the hateful hug of the candle, the bitter kiss of the filament? Accidents of the universe we may be, but we are beautiful accidents and we must not live as though we were ugly. The flame is a cheat, and love is the only."

All the other moths wept. They pressed around him by the billions, calling him a saint and vowing to change their lives. "What the world needs now is love," they cried as one bug. But then the lights began to come on all over the world, for it was nearing dinnertime. Fires were kindled, gas rings burned blue, electric coils glowed red, floodlights and searchlights and flashlights and porch lights blinked and creaked and blazed their mystery. And as one bug, as though nothing had been said, every moth at that historic assembly flew off on their nightly quest for cremation. The air sang with their eagerness.

Come back! Come back!" called the poor moth, feeling his whole heart sizzle up this time. "What have I been telling you? I said that this was no way to live, that you must keep yourselves for love - and you knew the truth when you heard it. "Why do you continue to embrace death when you know the truth?"

An old gypsy moth, her beauty ruined by a lifetime of singeing herself against nothing but arc lights at night games, paused by him for a moment. "Sonny, we couldn't agree with you more," she said. "Love is all that matters, and all that other stuff is as shadow. But there's just something about a good fire."

MORAL: Everybody knows better. That's the problem, not the answer.

moths flying over candle flames