A butterfly was caught in a spider’s web. The spider watched as it struggled to free itself from the sticky threads. Once it had exhausted its efforts, the spider approached.

“I couldn’t help noticing,” she began. “But you truly are a beautiful creature. The subtle gradations of colour, the delicate shimmering fabric of your wings, the fine detail of their outline: exquisite. Truly.”
The spider’s lavish compliments surprised the butterfly and gave it unexpected hope. “Have mercy,” it begged. “Let me live so I might decorate this world of ours with my grace and beauty.”
“I can’t do that, I’m afraid,” the spider replied.
“But why?”
“I have to eat.”
“But I am beautiful, you said so yourself. You don’t have to destroy good things in order to live. You could eat a fly instead.”
“Ugly or beautiful, I eat whatever finds its way into my web.”
“You are a monster. And a liar. You don’t care for beauty at all.”
“On the contrary,” the spider replied. “I am an artist. I create beauty every day. See the splendour of this web into which you blundered, I made it. I designed it. And every day I take it down and spin another, while you—you were merely born with your pretty wings and winsome manner and barely a care in the world.”

The butterfly might have objected further, but the spider had stunned it with a venomous bite and was already busy wrapping it in silk to store in its larder.

© Richard Parkin 2026

Further reading: Misadventures in the Land of Fables #77