English Fairy Tales
Thumbelina
There
once was a woman who wanted so very much to have a tiny little child,
but she did not know where to find one. So she went to an old witch,
and she said:
"I have set my heart upon having a tiny little child. Please could you tell me where I can find one?"
"Why,
that's easily done," said the witch. "Here's a grain of barley for you,
but it isn't at all the sort of barley that farmers grow in their
fields or that the chickens get to eat. Put it in a flower pot and
you'll see what you shall see."
"Oh thank you!" the woman said.
She gave the witch twelve pennies, and planted the barley seed as soon
as she got home. It quickly grew into a fine large flower, which looked
very much like a tulip. But the petals were folded tight, as though it
were still a bud.
"This is such a pretty flower," said the
woman. She kissed its lovely red and yellow petals, and just as she
kissed it the flower gave a loud pop! and flew open. It was a tulip,
right enough, but on the green cushion in the middle of it sat a tiny
girl. She was dainty and fair to see, but she was no taller than your
thumb. So she was called Thumbelina.
A nicely polished walnut
shell served as her cradle. Her mattress was made of the blue petals of
violets, and a rose petal was pulled up to cover her. That was how she
slept at night. In the daytime she played on a table where the woman
put a plate surrounded with a wreath of flowers. Their stems lay in the
water, on which there floated a large tulip petal. Thumbelina used the
petal as a boat, and with a pair of white horsehairs for oars she could
row clear across the plate-a charming sight. She could sing, too. Her
voice was the softest and sweetest that anyone ever has heard.
One
night as she lay in her cradle, a horrible toad hopped in through the
window-one of the panes was broken. This big, ugly, slimy toad jumped
right down on the table where Thumbelina was asleep under the red rose
petal.
"Here's a perfect wife for my son!" the toad exclaimed.
She seized upon the walnut shell in which Thumbelina lay asleep, and
hopped off with it, out the window and into the garden. A big broad
stream ran through it, with a muddy marsh along its banks, and here the
toad lived with her son. Ugh! he was just like his mother, slimy and
horrible. "Co-ax, co-ax, brek-ek-eke-kex," was all that he could say
when he saw the graceful little girl in the walnut shell.
"Don't
speak so loud, or you will wake her up," the old toad told him. "She
might get away from us yet, for she is as light as a puff of
swan's-down. We must put her on one of the broad water lily leaves out
in the stream. She is so small and light that it will be just like an
island to her, and she can't run away from us while we are making our
best room under the mud ready for you two to live in."
Many
water lilies with broad green leaves grew in the stream, and it looked
as if they were floating on the surface. The leaf which lay furthest
from the bank was the largest of them all, and it was to this leaf that
the old toad swam with the walnut shell which held Thumbelina.
The
poor little thing woke up early next morning, and when she saw where
she was she began to cry bitterly. There was water all around the big
green leaf and there was no way at all for her to reach the shore. The
old toad sat in the mud, decorating a room with green rushes and yellow
water lilies, to have it looking its best for her new daughter-in-law.
Then she and her ugly son swam out to the leaf on which Thumbelina was
standing. They came for her pretty little bed, which they wanted to
carry to the bridal chamber before they took her there.
The old toad curtsied deep in the water before her, and said:
"Meet my son. He is to be your husband, and you will share a delightful home in the mud."
"Co-ax, co-ax, brek-ek-eke-kex," was all that her son could say.
Then
they took the pretty little bed and swam away with it. Left all alone
on the green leaf, Thumbelina sat down and cried. She did not want to
live in the slimy toad's house, and she didn't want to have the toad's
horrible son for her husband. The little fishes who swam in the water
beneath her had seen the toad and heard what she had said. So up popped
their heads to have a look at the little girl. No sooner had they seen
her than they felt very sorry that anyone so pretty should have to go
down to live with that hideous toad. No, that should never be! They
gathered around the green stem which held the leaf where she was, and
gnawed it in two with their teeth. Away went the leaf down the stream,
and away went Thumbelina, far away where the toad could not catch her.
Thumbelina
sailed past many a place, and when the little birds in the bushes saw
her they sang, "What a darling little girl." The leaf drifted further
and further away with her, and so it was that Thumbelina became a
traveler.
A lovely white butterfly kept fluttering around her,
and at last alighted on the leaf, because he admired Thumbelina. She
was a happy little girl again, now that the toad could not catch her.
It was all very lovely as she floated along, and where the sun struck
the water it looked like shining gold. Thumbelina undid her sash, tied
one end of it to the butterfly, and made the other end fast to the
leaf. It went much faster now, and Thumbelina went much faster too, for
of course she was standing on it.
Just then, a big May-bug flew
by and caught sight of her. Immediately he fastened his claws around
her slender waist and flew with her up into a tree. Away went the green
leaf down the stream, and away went the butterfly with it, for he was
tied to the leaf and could not get loose.
My goodness! How
frightened little Thumbelina was when the May-bug carried her up in the
tree. But she was even more sorry for the nice white butterfly she had
fastened to the leaf, because if he couldn't free himself he would have
to starve to death. But the May-bug wasn't one to care about that. He
sat her down on the largest green leaf of the tree, fed her honey from
the flowers, and told her how pretty she was, considering that she
didn't look the least like a May-bug. After a while, all the other
May-bugs who lived in the tree came to pay them a call. As they stared
at Thumbelina, the lady May-bugs threw up their feelers and said:
"Why, she has only two legs-what a miserable sight!"
"She hasn't any feelers," one cried.
"She is pinched in at the waist-how shameful! She looks like a human being-how ugly she is!" said all of the female May-bugs.
Yet
Thumbelina was as pretty as ever. Even the May-bug who had flown away
with her knew that, but as every last one of them kept calling her
ugly, he at length came to agree with them and would have nothing to do
with her-she could go wherever she chose. They flew down out of the
tree with her and left her on a daisy, where she sat and cried because
she was so ugly that the May-bugs wouldn't have anything to do with her.
Nevertheless, she was the loveliest little girl you can imagine, and as frail and fine as the petal of a rose.
All
summer long, poor Thumbelina lived all alone in the woods. She wove
herself a hammock of grass, and hung it under a big burdock leaf to
keep off the rain. She took honey from the flowers for food, and drank
the dew which she found on the leaves every morning. In this way the
summer and fall went by. Then came the winter, the long, cold winter.
All the birds who had sung so sweetly for her flew away. The trees and
the flowers withered. The big burdock leaf under which she had lived
shriveled up until nothing was left of it but a dry, yellow stalk. She
was terribly cold, for her clothes had worn threadbare and she herself
was so slender and frail. Poor Thumbelina, she would freeze to death!
Snow began to fall, and every time a snowflake struck her it was as if
she had been hit by a whole shovelful, for we are quite tall while she
measured only an inch. She wrapped a withered leaf about her, but there
was no warmth in it. She shivered with cold.
Near the edge of
the woods where she now had arrived, was a large grain field, but the
grain had been harvested long ago. Only the dry, bare stubble stuck out
of the frozen ground. It was just as if she were lost in a vast forest,
and oh how she shivered with cold! Then she came to the door of a field
mouse, who had a little hole amidst the stubble. There this mouse
lived, warm and cozy, with a whole store-room of grain, and a
magnificent kitchen and pantry. Poor Thumbelina stood at the door, just
like a beggar child, and pled for a little bit of barley, because she
hadn't had anything to eat for two days past.
"Why, you poor
little thing," said the field mouse, who turned out to be a
kind-hearted old creature. "You must come into my warm room and share
my dinner." She took such a fancy to Thumbelina that she said, "If you
care to, you may stay with me all winter, but you must keep my room
tidy, and tell me stories, for I am very fond of them." Thumbelina did
as the kind old field mouse asked and she had a very good time of it.
"Soon
we shall have a visitor," the field mouse said. "Once every week my
neighbor comes to see me, and he is even better off than I am. His
rooms are large, and he wears such a beautiful black velvet coat. If
you could only get him for a husband you would be well taken care of,
but he can't see anything. You must tell him the very best stories you
know."
Thumbelina did not like this suggestion. She would not
even consider the neighbor, because he was a mole. He paid them a visit
in his black velvet coat. The field mouse talked about how wealthy and
wise he was, and how his home was more than twenty times larger than
hers. But for all of his knowledge he cared nothing at all for the sun
and the flowers. He had nothing good to say for them, and had never
laid eyes on them. As
Thumbelina had to sing for him, she sang,
"May-bug, May-bug, fly away home," and "The Monk goes afield." The mole
fell in love with her sweet voice, but he didn't say anything about it
yet, for he was a most discreet fellow.
He had just dug a long
tunnel through the ground from his house to theirs, and the field mouse
and Thumbelina were invited to use it whenever they pleased, though he
warned them not to be alarmed by the dead bird which lay in this
passage. It was a complete bird, with feather and beak. It must have
died quite recently, when winter set in, and it was buried right in the
middle of the tunnel.
The mole took in his mouth a torch of
decayed wood. In the darkness it glimmered like fire. He went ahead of
them to light the way through the long, dark passage. When they came to
where the dead bird lay, the mole put his broad nose to the ceiling and
made a large hole through which daylight could fall. In the middle of
the floor lay a dead swallow, with his lovely wings folded at his sides
and his head tucked under his feathers. The poor bird must certainly
have died of the cold. Thumbelina felt so sorry for him. She loved all
the little birds who had sung and sweetly twittered to her all through
the summer. But the mole gave the body a kick with his short stumps,
and said, "Now he won't be chirping any more. What a wretched thing it
is to be born a little bird. Thank goodness none of my children can be
a bird, who has nothing but his 'chirp, chirp', and must starve to
death when winter comes along."
"Yes, you are so right, you
sensible man," the field mouse agreed. "What good is all his
chirp-chirping to a bird in the winter time, when he starves and
freezes? But that's considered very grand, I imagine."
Thumbelina
kept silent, but when the others turned their back on the bird she bent
over, smoothed aside the feathers that hid the bird's head, and kissed
his closed eyes.
"Maybe it was he who sang so sweetly to me in
the summertime," she thought to herself. "What pleasure he gave me, the
dear, pretty bird."
The mole closed up the hole that let in the
daylight, and then he took the ladies home. That night Thumbelina could
not sleep a wink, so she got up and wove a fine large coverlet out of
hay. She took it to the dead bird and spread it over him, so that he
would lie warm in the cold earth. She tucked him in with some soft
thistledown that she had found in the field mouse's room.
"Good-by,
you pretty little bird," she said. "Good-by, and thank you for your
sweet songs last summer, when the trees were all green and the sun
shone so warmly upon us." She laid her head on his breast, and it
startled her to feel a soft thump, as if something were beating inside.
This was the bird's heart. He was not dead- he was only numb with cold,
and now that he had been warmed he came to life again.
In the
fall, all swallows fly off to warm countries, but if one of them starts
too late he gets so cold that he drops down as if he were dead, and
lies where he fell. And then the cold snow covers him.
Thumbelina
was so frightened that she trembled, for the bird was so big, so
enormous compared to her own inch of height. But she mustered her
courage, tucked the cotton wool down closer around the poor bird,
brought the mint leaf that covered her own bed, and spread it over the
bird's head.
The following night she tiptoed out to him again.
He was alive now, but so weak that he could barely open his eyes for a
moment to look at Thumbelina, who stood beside him with the piece of
touchwood that was her only lantern.
"Thank you, pretty little
child," the sick swallow said. "I have been wonderfully warmed. Soon I
shall get strong once more, and be able to fly again in the warm
sunshine."
"Oh," she said, "It's cold outside, it's snowing, and freezing. You just stay in your warm bed and I'll nurse you."
Then
she brought him some water in the petal of a flower. The swallow drank,
and told her how he had hurt one of his wings in a thorn bush, and for
that reason couldn't fly as fast as the other swallows when they flew
far, far away to the warm countries. Finally he had dropped to the
ground. That was all he remembered, and he had no idea how he came to
be where she found him.
The swallow stayed there all through the
winter, and Thumbelina was kind to him and tended him with loving care.
She didn't say anything about this to the field mouse or to the mole,
because they did not like the poor unfortunate swallow.
As soon
as spring came and the sun warmed the earth, the swallow told
Thumbelina it was time to say good-by. She reopened the hole that the
mole had made in the ceiling, and the sun shone in splendor upon them.
The swallow asked Thumbelina to go with him. She could sit on his back
as they flew away through the green woods. But Thumbelina knew that it
would make the old field mouse feel badly if she left like that, so she
said:
"No, I cannot go."
"Fare you well, fare you well,
my good and pretty girl," said the swallow, as he flew into the
sunshine. Tears came into Thumbelina's eyes as she watched him go, for
she was so fond of the poor swallow.
"Chirp, chirp!" sang the bird, at he flew into the green woods.
Thumbelina
felt very downcast. She was not permitted to go out in the warm
sunshine. Moreover, the grain that was sown in the field above the
field mouse's house grew so tall that, to a poor little girl who was
only an inch high, it was like a dense forest.
"You must work on
your trousseau this summer," the field mouse said, for their neighbor,
that loathsome mole in his black velvet coat, had proposed to her. "You
must have both woolens and linens, both bedding and wardrobe, when you
become the mole's wife."
Thumbelina had to turn the spindle, and
the field mouse hired four spiders to spin and weave for her day and
night. The mole came to call every evening, and his favorite remark was
that the sun, which now baked the earth as hard as a rock, would not be
nearly so hot when summer was over. Yes, as soon as summer was past he
would be marrying Thumbelina. But she was not at all happy about it,
because she didn't like the tedious mole the least bit. Every morning
at sunrise and every evening at sunset, she would steal out the door.
When the breeze blew the ears of grain apart she could catch glimpses
of the blue sky. She could dream about how bright and fair it was out
of doors, and how she wished she would see her dear swallow again. But
he did not come back, for doubtless he was far away, flying about in
the lovely green woods.
When fall arrived, Thumbelina's whole trousseau was ready.
"Your
wedding day is four weeks off," the field mouse told her. But
Thumbelina cried and declared that she would not have the tedious mole
for a husband.
"Fiddlesticks," said the field mouse. "Don't you
be obstinate, or I'll bite you with my white teeth. Why, you're getting
a superb husband. The queen herself hasn't a black velvet coat as fine
as his. Both his kitchen and his cellar are well supplied. You ought to
thank goodness that you are getting him."
Then came the wedding
day. The mole had come to take Thumbelina home with him, where she
would have to live deep underground and never go out in the warm
sunshine again, because he disliked it so. The poor little girl felt
very sad that she had to say good-by to the glorious sun, which the
field mouse had at least let her look out at through the doorway.
"Farewell,
bright sun!" she said. With her arm stretched toward it she walked a
little way from the field mouse's home. The grain had been harvested,
and only the dry stubble was left in the field. "Farewell. farewell!"
she cried again, and flung her little arms around a small red flower
that was still in bloom. "If you see my dear swallow, please give him
my love."
"Chirp, chirp! Chirp, chirp!" She suddenly heard a
twittering over her head. She looked up and there was the swallow, just
passing by. He was so glad to see Thumbelina although, when she told
him how she hated to marry the mole and live deep underground where the
sun never shone, she could not hold back her tears.
"Now that
the cold winter is coming," the swallow told her, "I shall fly far, far
away to the warm countries. Won't you come along with me? You can ride
on my back. Just tie yourself on with your sash, and away we'll fly,
far from the ugly mole and his dark hole-far, far away, over the
mountains to the warm countries where the sun shines so much fairer
than here, to where it is always summer and there are always flowers.
Please fly away with me, dear little Thumbelina, you who saved my life
when I lay frozen in a dark hole in the earth."
"Yes, I will go
with you!" said Thumbelina. She sat on his back, put her feet on his
outstretched wings, and fastened her sash to one of his strongest
feathers. Then the swallow soared into the air over forests and over
lakes, high up over the great mountains that are always capped with
snow. When Thumbelina felt cold in the chill air, she crept under the
bird's warm feathers, with only her little head stuck out to watch all
the wonderful sights below.
At length they came to the warm
countries. There the sun shone far more brightly than it ever does
here, and the sky seemed twice as high. Along the ditches and hedgerows
grew marvelous green and blue grapes. Lemons and oranges hung in the
woods. The air smelled sweetly of myrtle and thyme. By the wayside, the
loveliest children ran hither and thither, playing with the brightly
colored butterflies.
But the swallow flew on still farther, and
it became more and more beautiful. Under magnificent green trees, on
the shore of a blue lake there stood an ancient palace of dazzling
white marble. The lofty pillars were wreathed with vines, and at the
top of them many swallows had made their nests. One nest belonged to
the swallow who carried Thumbelina.
"This is my home," the
swallow told her. "If you will choose one of those glorious flowers in
bloom down below, I shall place you in it, and you will have all that
your heart desires."
"That will be lovely," she cried, and clapped her tiny hands.
A
great white marble pillar had fallen to the ground, where it lay in
three broken pieces. Between these pieces grew the loveliest large
white flowers. The swallow flew down with Thumbelina and put her on one
of the large petals. How surprised she was to find in the center of the
flower a little man, as shining and transparent as if he had been made
of glass. On his head was the daintiest of little gold crowns, on his
shoulders were the brightest shining wings, and he was not a bit bigger
than Thumbelina. He was the spirit of the flower. In every flower there
lived a small man or woman just like him, but he was the king over all
of them.
"Oh, isn't he handsome?" Thumbelina said softly to the
swallow. The king was somewhat afraid of the swallow, which seemed a
very giant of a bird to anyone as small as he. But when he saw
Thumbelina he rejoiced, for she was the prettiest little girl he had
ever laid eyes on. So he took off his golden crown and put it on her
head. He asked if he might know her name, and he asked her to be his
wife, which would make her queen over all the flowers. Here indeed was
a different sort of husband from the toad's son and the mole with his
black velvet coat. So she said "Yes" to this charming king. From all
the flowers trooped little ladies and gentlemen delightful to behold.
Every one of them brought Thumbelina a present, but the best gift of
all was a pair of wings that had belonged to a large silver fly. When
these were made fast to her back, she too could flit from flower to
flower. Everyone rejoiced, as the swallow perched above them in his
nest and sang his very best songs for them. He was sad though, deep
down in his heart, for he liked Thumbelina so much that he wanted never
to part with her.
"You shall no longer be called Thumbelina,"
the flower spirit told her. " That name is too ugly for anyone as
pretty as you are. We shall call you Maia."
"Good-by, good-by,"
said the swallow. He flew away again from the warm countries, back to
far-away Denmark, where he had a little nest over the window of the man
who can tell you fairy tales. To him the bird sang, "Chirp, chirp!
Chirp, chirp!" and that's how we heard the whole story.
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