Join us at the campfire for tales from around the world, told by storytellers of all backgrounds and creeds. From the heros and heroines of old, let us relearn and rediscover the wisdom of our ancestors. Shhh..the story begins..

There was once in Ancient China an age of extreme darkness and severe despair. The Emperor who ruled the land was greedy, cruel and heartless. He presided over a court that was riddled with corruption and depravity, where bribery was the common currency and flattery the only language spoken.

The monarch who sat upon the throne remained aloof from his subjects. He lived in a grand and imposing palace that the astrologers of the day had identified as the precise center of the universe. He passed his days by counting the amount of gold in the royal coffers, reading the reports of his despicable spies and condemning all who displeased him to suffer an excruciatingly slow and most terrible death.

It was left to his Prime Minister...a venerable mandarin...to oversee the management of the empire and to ensure that the imperial will was carried out. But, one day (for reasons not explained and perhaps not known by the keepers of the tale) this elderly Minister became sickened by the corruption that surrounded him. Pleading ill health and the increasing feebleness that comes with old age, he obtained the Emperor's grudgingly-given permission to retire from court. There would certainly be no shortage of power-hungry younger men to step into the former Prime Minister's shoes.

Emerging for the last time from the palace, the mandarin ordered his palanquin-bearers to carry him to a monastery some distance from the Emperor's capital. There, he planned to spend the remainder of his days in prayer and penance.

Soon, the mandarin had left behind the smoke and ear-shattering clamor of the city and had arrived at the edge of a peaceful woodland. Commanding his servants to stop, the mandarin stepped out from his curtained litter and instructed his attendants to return for him at sunset. He stood for moment breathing deeply of the sweet, clean air and then sank slowly to his knees and wept bitterly for his sins.

Afterward, the mandarin sat quietly beneath a tree, listening to the songbirds. He remained so still and silent that bees lit upon his brilliantly colored robe, mistaking it for a bed of wild flowers. On an impulse, the mandarin drew out his dagger and cut a piece of silk from his clothing. He placed it upon the ground to see if the bees would continue to be fooled by the bright swatch of fabric. Suddenly, the scrap of material rose and fluttered, as if lifted by a breeze...but there was no breeze. The mandarin stared in astonishment for the small fragment seemed to be flying of its own free will. Wonderingly, he cut yet another snippet from his robe and it too took wing.

With his dagger glinting in the light of the afternoon sun, the mandarin sent more embroidered scraps into the air until the glade was alive with delicate creatures...flashing their colors and patterns as they danced between the golden rays shining down from above.

At the end of the day, the mandarin's attendants returned for him, as they had been ordered to do. They found him sitting on the ground, his magnificent robe in tatters and barely recognizable as the splendid garment it had once been. They stared in amazement at the face of their master, for his cheeks were wet with tears of joy which continued to overflow freely from his elated eyes. Miraculously, the old mandarin had at last achieved something exquisitely wonderful...something pure and infinitely beautiful to behold...he had given the world its first butterflies.