The Ugly Duckling

The Ugly Duckling swimming alone

This first drawing is also posted with the song lyrics below.  Here the "ugly duckling" is swimming alone and happy.  I think it shows that until others tell us something is wrong with us, we can be happy.   It is when others bully us into believing that we are inferior that we can start to doubt our own value.  That does not mean we should not strive to be our very best, but never believe a bully's lies.   Read more to see why.  

The Ugly Duckling  is a story originally by Hans Christian Andersen.  He was a Danish author who was a writer of children’s stories… mainly he is known for his Fairy Tales.  He also wrote many plays, novels, travelogues  and poems… but most of us know him for those fairy tales.  One of them is The Ugly Duckling.  A movie musical titled with a title of  his name was made in 1952.  It stars Danny Kaye.  One of the songs is The Ugly Duckling.

I drew three pictures to illustrate the song.   The last drawing is an older drawing, but I re-posted it on the  following buttons found above...along with the 3 new drawings... All Printables,   Animals,  and Fantasy Myths and Circus.  The lists of printable versions of the drawings are found by clicking those buttons at the top of the blog.  

    

 The Ugly Duckling
With Illustrations by Robin Lyman
Song from the movie Hans Christian Andersen

NOTE:  The Bolded titles below the pictures are not part of the lyrics. 

The Ugly Duckling swimming alone

There once was an ugly duckling 

With feathers all stubby and brown

The Ugly Duckling getting bullied

And the other birds in so many words said

“Ptt get out of town! 

     Ptt!  Get out!    Ptt!  Get out!     Ptt!  Get out of town!”

And he went with a quack and a waddle and a quack

And a flurry of eiderdown

That poor little ugly duckling

Went wandering far and near

But at every place they said to his face

“Ptt!   Get out!    Ptt!  Get out!     Ptt!  Get out of here!  

And he went with a quack and a waddle and a quack

And a very unhappy tear

The Ugly Duckling in the Winter

All through the wintertime he hid himself away

Ashamed to show his face   Afraid of what others might say

All through the winter in is lonely clump of wheat

Til a flock of swans spied him there and very soon agreed

“You’re a very fine swan indeed!”

The Ugly Duckling finds out he is a Swan

“A swan?  Me a swan?  Ah go on!”

And he said “Yes you’re a swan! 

Take a look at yourself in the lake and you’ll see!”

And he looked   And he saw   And he said

“I AM a swan!  Wheeeeeeee!

I’m not such an ugly duckling

No feathers all stubby and brown

For in fact these birds in so many words said

“Tch!  The best in town!  

Tch  The best!   Tch!  The best!   Tch Tch!   The best in town!”

Swan realistic

(This is an older drawing.) 

Not a quack not a quack not a waddle and a quack

But a glide and a whistle and a snowy white back

And a head so noble and high

Say whose and ugly duckling?

Not I!

The ugly duckling story is known to happen in real life with people.  I have known young people who were outcasts in their school days and yet they went on to be very successful.  Some became beauty queens, or millionaires or huge successes in their field of work from doctor to politician.…or they just became happy people with a good marriage and a successful life.  If you feel like an ugly duckling there may just be hope for you.  Your career matters if you strive to support yourself and or your family and try to excel at what you do…whatever that is. 

I myself and my wonderful wife were bullied and teased in school.  She was heavy and I was super skinny at the time.  I had a trach tube and I had no athletic skills at all.  My future wife struggled to learn to read in elementary school.  We were bullied by the "popular" kids.  And yet as adults we have had a glorious life together!  WE are not millionaires yet we are successful teachers who loved our work. . . love our children. . . and love our grandchildren.  We have lots of extended family we care about too!  We have friends who also mean a lot to us.  Some of our family and friends went through the ugly duckling stage in their lives. 

My wife was a Geologists before teaching and I was a Respiratory Therapist before I became a teacher.  We studied together after our marriage and got masters degrees in Geoscience together.  We have served together in our church and as teachers of science.  I feel like we are ugly ducklings that became swans in our lives.  Yes we now have pretty bad health challenges…but yet we are also happy grandparents!  We travel and see new places all over the world as we can.  We truly are happy people who were once ugly ducklings.  In a way, we have been each other's swan.   By the way, I honestly know of some people that bullied and teased me who had a much less successful life  …in my opinion.   

So don’t despair if you have found yourself in an ugly duckling phase of life.  Your swan years may just be ahead of you.  So if you get bullied, never believe the bully's lies.  Again, your swan years are ahead of you.