Thumbelina

There once was a woman who wished very much to have a little child, but she never did. Finally, she went to a fairy and told her that she would like to have a child. The fairy told her that she had a different kind of corn and that if she planted it in a flower pot something might happen. The woman took the corn home and immediately planted it in a flower pot, and almost right away a beautiful flower started to grow. It looked a little like a tulip with the bud tightly closed. "It is a beautiful flower" said the woman, and she touched the little bud. As soon as she did it opened up in beautiful reds and golds. Inside the flower on the green velvet stamens sat a tiny little girl.

She was so tiny, half the length of your thumb, that the woman named her Thumbelina. The woman made her a bed out of a walnut shell, which the lady polished and lined with blue violet leaves and a rose leaf for a blanket. The woman filled a plateful of water and put beautiful wreaths of flowers around the edge of the plate with their stems in the water. A large tulip leaf was floating in the middle of the plate of water, and Thumbelina sat in it like it was a boat. Thumbelina loved to sit in her boat paddling around the plate of water singing sweetly throughout the day.

One night while she slept in her Walnut shell bed, an ugly old toad crept into the house and right up on the table where Thumbelina was sleeping. The toad thought "What a lovely wife she would make for my son" and stole the Walnut shell and all taking Thumbelina with her into the night. The next day the old toad introduced Thumbelina to the toad which was to be her husband. She was very unhappy because all he could say was "croak croak" and he was as ugly as the old toad.

She was placed on a lily pad and told that this was where she would live. Thumbelina was crying when the little fishes in the stream decided to help her and they chewed away at the stem of the lily pad releasing her little lily pad and she floated away. She floated away for many days into far lands and met knew friends. She met a little white butterfly who agreed to tow her with Thumbelina's little silk sash. Thumbelina was happy in the sunshine and was singing beautifully when some little birds saw her and came and grabbed her around the waist taking her off into the trees.

One bird gave her some honey from a flower and then other birds came by. The bird who took her from the lily pad said "Isn't she very pretty?" The other birds started arguing that no, she was quite ugly and looked like a human being. Finally the one bird realized that everyone else thought she was too ugly to keep and the bird took her to a daisy leaving her there in a field. Well, now Thumbelina was all alone and she survived the summer by eating the honey from flowers and drinking the dew from the leaves in the morning. The summer was nice, but then came autumn and finally winter. Snow started falling and poor Thumbelina was freezing.

She realized she had to find shelter and walked for miles and miles in the cold. Finally she came to the door of a little field mouse's house. She knocked at the door and begged for something to eat. "You poor little creature" said the field-mouse - who was really very nice "come into my warm room and dine with me." He told her that she was invited to stay with him if she helped to clean and keep things very neat the way he liked. Thumbelina was happy to do the chores and stayed there very happily.

The only problem with living with the field mouse was his neighbor the ugly and miserable mole. The field mouse thought that the mole might make a good husband for Thumbelina, but she could not understand why he didn't like the sunshine or the singing of birds. In fact she found him very unpleasant and had not interest in marrying him.

One day after the mole had dug a long tunnel from his house to the house of the field mouse, they came across a beautiful swallow who it seems had falling through the ground into the tunnel. The mole made fun of the stupid bird who did nothing but sing all summer, and then obviously had died from the cold. Thumbelina thought that the Swallow was very beautiful, and was sad that the bird lay there dead. However, that night she thought of the bird and wove a warm blanket out of hay and brought it to the bird. She spread it over the bird and then laid her head on the bird's breast when she heard a thump thump. Thumbelina was thrilled that the bird had just been numbed from cold and that he was alive.

Thumbelina was a little frightened, after all the bird was much bigger than she was, but she laid more of the thick blanket over the bird. Over the winter she nursed the swallow back to life, hiding him from the field mouse and the mole, for they did not like birds. In the spring the swallow offered to take Thumbelina with him into the sunshine, but she felt she could not leave. The field mouse would be upset if she left and she owed him so much. However, by the end of the summer after much talk of her marrying the miserable mole, when the swallow returned with a "tweet tweet" and suggested that she go with him down south to get away from the coming winter, she agreed.

Thumbelina seated herself on the bird's back and they flew up in the air and over the forest and over the sea, high above the highest mountains. They eventually got to the warmer countries where purple and green grapes grew on vines; lemons and oranges hung from trees and the air was fragrant with herbs and orange blossoms. Children ran along the country lanes chasing butterflies, and as they came to a blue lake with deep trees surrounding a white marble palace Thumbelina could see many swallows nests.

The swallow suggested some of the beautiful white flowers below his nest might be a good place for her to make her home. She agreed happily and as they flew towards a beautiful white flower it opened and in the center of it stood a tiny young man. He was all white like crystal and wore a beautiful golden crown on his head. He thought Thumbelina to be the most beautiful young girl he had ever seen and put the crown on her head asking her to be his wife. He told her that he was the prince and if she married him he would be the queen of all the flowers.

She agreed and lived happily ever after. When the winter was over the swallow said that he must leave and go north to his other nest over the window of a man who wrote fairy tales. He loved to sing to the man "tweet tweet". This is where the whole story came from.