The Mother Swan is a minor character of Disney's 75th and final Silly Symphonies short film, The Ugly Duckling.
Role in the short[]
Appearing toward the short's end, she and her cygnets are out for a swim when they overhear someone crying nearby. The sound leads them to a lone little cygnet who mistakenly believed himself to be a duckling due to being hatched in a duck's nest.
Because he was so different from their other ducklings, the ducks had cast him out of their family and his failure to find acceptance anywhere else because of his "ugliness" had crushed his hope of ever being loved. After her cygnets introduce themselves and convince him to come and play, she calls out to them, but the Ugly Duckling's fear of further rejection made him hesitant to even approach her.
However, Mother Swan pulls him close (despite his initial resistance) and lovingly embraces him to prove that she doesn't consider him ugly at all and that she's willing to take him in due to his plight. Realizing this, the Ugly Duckling happily embraces the Mother Swan, accepting her and the other cygnets as his family.
At the short's end, the Mother Swan is last seen leading all of her cygnets home (including the Ugly Duckling). It was never specified in the short if she was his real mother who somehow lost the egg or an adoptive mother, but either way, she gave the Ugly Duckling what he needed the most: a loving family.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The Mother Swan makes a cameo in Lilo & Stitch, where she is seen in a book.