The Butterfly's Ball, and the Grasshopper's Feast is the title of a poem by William Roscoe

William Roscoe

William Roscoe , was an English historian and miscellaneous writer.-Life:He was born in Liverpool, where his father, a market gardener, kept a public house called the Bowling Green at Mount Pleasant. Roscoe left school at the age of twelve, having learned all that his schoolmaster could teach...

, written in 1802, and telling the story of a party for insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s and other small animals.

Two anonymous sequels were The Peacock 'At Home and The Lion's Masquerade and the Elephant's Champetre, both credited to "A Lady", and describing similar parties for bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s and large mammal

Mammal

Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s.

The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast is also the title of a 1973 picture book, loosely based on the poem, by Alan Aldridge

Alan Aldridge

Alan Aldridge is an English artist, graphic designer and illustrator.-Personal life:Born in 1943 in east London, he currently resides in Los Angeles...

 and William Plomer

William Plomer

William Charles Franklyn Plomer CBE was a South African author, known as a novelist, poet and literary editor. He was educated mostly in the United Kingdom...

. This greatly expanded and altered the original work, focusing more on the animals' preparations for the Ball. Aldridge went on to create two more books based on the sequels; The Peacock Party and The Lion's Cavalcade.

An animated

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

 short based on Aldridge's illustrations, but once more focusing on the Ball itself, was made in 1974, with Roger Glover

Roger Glover

Roger David Glover is a Welsh bassist, songwriter, and record producer. Glover is best known as the bassist and lyricist for the hard rock band, Deep Purple.-Early career:...

 writing the accompanying song Love is All, based on the song Love's All You Need mentioned in the book (which may, in turn, have been a reference to The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' "All You Need Is Love

All You Need Is Love

"All You Need Is Love" is a song written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was first performed by The Beatles on Our World, the first live global television link. Watched by 400 million in 26 countries, the programme was broadcast via satellite on 25 June 1967...

"). This was supposed to lead to a full length animated film, which did not get made. However, Glover had written a full soundtrack, which was performed and released as a rock opera, The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast.

Composer Ryan Fraley created an orchestrated piece based on the poem called "Butterfly's Ball".

External links

• The Butterfly's Ball, and the Grasshopper's Feast from Representative Poetry Online
• "Butterfly's Ball" composed by Ryan Fraley