Thumbelina

There was once a woman who longed with all her heart for a tiny little child, but she had no idea where to find one. So she went to an old witch and said to her, "I would so dearly love to have a little child. Can you tell me where I might find one?"

"Oh, we can manage that easily enough," said the witch. "Here is a barleycorn. It is not the sort that grows in the farmer's fields, or the kind the chickens are given to eat. Plant it in a flowerpot, and then you shall see something."

"Thank you," said the woman, and she gave the witch twelve shillings, for that was the price of it. Then she went home and planted the barleycorn, and at once a splendid, tall flower sprang up, looking very much like a tulip, but with its petals shut tight together as if it were still a bud.

"What a lovely flower," said the woman, and she kissed its red and yellow petals. But the very moment she kissed it, the flower burst open with a soft pop. It was a real tulip, anyone could see that now, but sitting in the middle of the blossom, on the green velvet center, was a little girl, dainty and delicate. She was hardly half a thumb tall, and so they named her Thumbelina.

A neatly polished walnut shell became Thumbelina's cradle, blue violet petals were her mattress, and a rose petal was her blanket. There she slept at night, but by day she played on the table, where the woman had set a plate ringed round with a wreath of flowers whose stems stood in water. On this water floated a large tulip leaf, and Thumbelina could sit on it and row from one side of the plate to the other, using two white horsehairs for oars. It was a charming sight. She could sing, too, so sweetly and softly that no one had ever heard the like.

One night, as she lay in her pretty bed, an old toad came creeping in through the window, where one pane of glass was broken. The toad was ugly, big, and wet. She hopped down onto the table where Thumbelina lay sleeping under her red rose-petal blanket.

"She would make a lovely wife for my son," said the toad, and she picked up the walnut shell with Thumbelina asleep inside it and hopped away with it out the window, down into the garden.

A wide stream ran through the garden, but its banks were swampy and muddy, and here the toad lived with her son. Ugh, he was ugly and horrid, exactly like his mother. "Croak, croak, brekekekex!" was all he could say when he saw the pretty little maiden in the walnut shell.

"Don't speak so loud, or you'll wake her," said the old toad. "She could still run away from us, for she is as light as swan's down. We'll set her out on one of the broad water-lily leaves in the stream. That will be an island to her, she is so light and small, and she'll have no way of escaping while we make ready the state room down in the marsh, where you two shall live and keep house."

Out in the stream grew many water lilies with broad green leaves that seemed to float on the water. The one that lay farthest out was also the largest, and the old toad swam out to it and set the walnut shell with Thumbelina upon it.

Early in the morning the poor little thing woke, and when she saw where she was, she began to weep bitterly, for there was water on every side of the great green leaf, and no way for her to reach the land.

Meanwhile the old toad was busy down in the marsh, decking out her room with rushes and yellow marsh flowers, to make it pretty for her new daughter-in-law. Then she swam out with her ugly son to the leaf where Thumbelina sat. They had come to fetch her pretty little bed, so it could be set up in the bridal chamber before the bride herself entered. The old toad bowed low in the water before her and said, "Here is my son. He shall be your husband, and the two of you will live splendidly down in the marsh."

"Croak, croak, brekekekex!" was all the son could say.

Then they took the dainty little bed and swam away with it, but Thumbelina sat all alone on the green leaf and wept, for she could not bear to live with the horrid toad or to have her ugly son for a husband. The little fishes swimming below in the water had seen the toad and heard everything she said, so they poked their heads up to look at the little maiden. As soon as they caught sight of her, they thought her so lovely that they were truly sorry she should have to go down to the ugly toad. No, that must never happen! So they gathered together in the water around the green stalk that held the leaf, and they gnawed the stem through with their teeth. And away floated the leaf down the stream, carrying Thumbelina far, far away, where the toad could never reach her.

Thumbelina sailed past many towns, and the little birds sitting in the bushes saw her and sang, "What a lovely little maiden!" On and on the leaf floated with her, farther and farther, till she had drifted out of the country altogether.

A pretty little white butterfly kept fluttering around her, and at last it settled on the leaf. Thumbelina pleased him, and she was very glad, for now the toad could not catch her, and everything was so beautiful where she sailed. The sun shone on the water till it glittered like the finest silver. She took off her sash and tied one end of it around the butterfly and fastened the other end to the leaf, and now the leaf glided along much faster, and she with it, for she stood upon it.

Just then a great cockchafer came flying by. The moment he caught sight of her, he threw his claws around her slender waist and flew up with her into a tree. The green leaf floated on down the stream, and the butterfly went with it, for he was tied fast and could not free himself.

Oh, how frightened poor Thumbelina was when the cockchafer flew up into the tree with her! But most of all she grieved for the beautiful white butterfly she had tied to the leaf, for if he could not get loose, he would starve. The cockchafer did not care about that at all. He settled with her on the largest green leaf of the tree, gave her the sweet nectar of the flowers to eat, and told her she was very pretty, though she did not in the least resemble a cockchafer. Before long, all the other cockchafers who lived in the tree came to pay a visit. They looked Thumbelina over and said, "Why, she has only two legs. How wretched that looks." "She has no feelers," said another. "Her waist is so thin. Ugh, she looks just like a human being! How ugly she is!" said all the lady cockchafers, and yet Thumbelina was truly lovely. The cockchafer who had carried her off could see this too, but when all the others said she was ugly, in the end he believed it himself and wanted nothing more to do with her. She might go wherever she liked. So they flew down out of the tree with her and set her on a daisy, and there she wept, because she was so ugly that the cockchafers would have nothing to do with her, and all the while she was the loveliest thing you could imagine, as fine and delicate as the most beautiful rose petal.

All that summer poor Thumbelina lived quite alone in the great forest. She wove herself a bed of blades of grass and hung it under a broad clover leaf, so she was sheltered from the rain. She gathered nectar from the flowers to eat, and drank the dew that lay on the leaves each morning. So the summer and the autumn passed, and then came the winter, the long, cold winter. All the birds that had sung so sweetly to her flew away. The trees and flowers lost their leaves. The great clover leaf under which she had lived rolled up and shriveled to nothing but a withered stalk. She was dreadfully cold, for her clothes were in tatters, and she herself was so tiny and delicate, poor Thumbelina, that she was surely going to freeze. It began to snow, and every snowflake that fell on her was like a whole shovelful thrown upon one of us, for we are so big and she was only an inch tall. She wrapped herself in a dry leaf, but it split down the middle and gave no warmth, and she shivered with cold.

Close by the forest where she had come now lay a great cornfield, but the corn had long since been carted away, and only the bare, dry stubble stood up out of the frozen ground. To her it was a whole forest to struggle through, and oh, how she shivered with cold! At last she came to the door of a field mouse, who had a little hole down under the stubble. There the mouse lived warm and snug, with her whole room full of corn, and a fine kitchen and pantry besides. Poor Thumbelina stood at the door like a little beggar girl and asked for a small piece of a barleycorn, for she had not had a bite to eat in two days.

"You poor little thing," said the field mouse, who was really a kindhearted old creature. "Come inside into my warm room and dine with me."

And since she took a liking to Thumbelina, she said, "You are welcome to stay with me through the winter, if you like, but you must keep my room clean and tidy, and tell me stories, for I am very fond of them." And Thumbelina did all the good old field mouse asked, and was extremely comfortable there.

"We shall soon have a visitor," said the field mouse. "My neighbor calls on me once a week. He is even better off than I am, with great halls to live in, and he wears a fine coat of black velvet. If only you could get him for a husband, you would be well provided for. But he cannot see. You must tell him the prettiest stories you know."

But Thumbelina cared nothing for that, for she had no interest in the neighbor. He was a mole, after all.

He came and paid his visit in his black velvet coat. He was very rich and very learned, the field mouse said, and his home was more than twenty times larger than her own. Learned he was, but he could not abide the sun or the pretty flowers, and he spoke ill of them, for he had never seen them.

Thumbelina had to sing, and she sang, "Cockchafer, cockchafer, fly away," and other pretty songs. The mole fell in love with her for her sweet voice, but he said nothing, for he was a careful and sensible fellow.

He had lately dug a long passage through the earth from his house to hers, and he gave the field mouse and Thumbelina leave to walk in it as much as they liked. But he warned them not to be frightened by the dead bird that lay in the passage. It was a whole bird, with feathers and a beak, that had surely died not long before, and it lay buried just where the mole had made his tunnel.

The mole took a piece of rotten wood in his mouth, for it glimmers like fire in the dark, and went ahead of them to light the long, gloomy passage. When they came to the place where the dead bird lay, the mole pressed his broad nose against the ceiling and pushed the earth up, making a great hole through which the daylight shone down. In the middle of the floor lay a dead swallow, its beautiful wings pressed tight to its sides, its feet and head drawn in under its feathers. The poor bird had surely died of the cold. It made Thumbelina very sad, for she loved all the little birds so dearly. All summer long they had sung and twittered so sweetly to her. But the mole gave the bird a shove with his crooked legs and said, "Now he'll pipe no more. It must be a wretched thing to be born a little bird. Thank goodness none of my children will be birds. Such a creature has nothing but its tweet-tweet, and it is bound to starve in the winter."

"Yes, a sensible man like you may well say so," said the field mouse. "What good is a bird's tweeting when the winter comes? It must starve and freeze. And yet they say it's a very grand thing to be a bird."

Thumbelina said nothing. But when the two of them had turned their backs on the bird, she bent down, brushed aside the feathers that covered its head, and kissed its closed eyes.

"Perhaps this was the very one that sang so sweetly to me in the summer," she thought. "What joy he gave me, the dear, beautiful bird."

The mole now stopped up the hole through which the daylight shone, and walked the ladies home. But that night Thumbelina could not sleep at all. So she got up out of bed and wove a large, beautiful blanket of hay. She carried it to the dead bird and spread it over him, and she tucked the soft flower-down she had found in the field mouse's room all around the sides of him, soft as cotton, so that he might lie warm in the cold earth.

"Farewell, you beautiful little bird," she said. "Farewell, and thank you for your lovely song in the summer, when all the trees were green and the sun shone warm upon us." Then she laid her head against the bird's breast. But the bird was not dead. He had only lain there stiff and frozen, and now, warmed again, he was coming back to life.

In autumn all the swallows fly away to the warm lands, but if one lingers too long, it grows so cold that it drops down as if dead and lies where it falls, and the cold snow covers it over.

Thumbelina trembled, she was so frightened, for the bird was big, very big beside her, who was only an inch tall. But she took courage, tucked the flower-down closer around the poor swallow, and fetched a mint leaf that she had used herself for a coverlet, and laid it over the bird's head.

The next night she crept to him again, and now he was alive, but very weak. He could open his eyes for only a moment and look at Thumbelina, who stood before him with a piece of rotten wood in her hand, for she had no other lantern.

"Thank you, you dear little child," said the sick swallow. "I have been so wonderfully warmed. Soon I shall get back my strength and be able to fly about again out in the warm sunshine."

"Oh," she said, "it is cold out of doors. It is snowing and freezing. Stay in your warm bed, and I will take good care of you."

Then she brought the swallow water in a flower petal, and he drank, and told her how he had torn one of his wings on a thornbush and so could not fly as fast as the other swallows, who had gone far, far away to the warm lands. At last he had fallen to the earth, but he could remember no more, and had no idea how he had come to be there.

All winter long the swallow stayed down there, and Thumbelina cared for him and nursed him with all her heart. Neither the mole nor the field mouse knew anything about it, for they could not abide the poor swallow.

As soon as spring came and the sun warmed the earth, the swallow said farewell to Thumbelina, and she opened the hole the mole had made above. The sun shone gloriously in upon them, and the swallow asked whether she would come along. She could sit on his back, and they would fly far away into the green woods. But Thumbelina knew it would grieve the old field mouse if she left her like that.

"No, I cannot," said Thumbelina.

"Farewell, farewell, you good, sweet little maiden," said the swallow, and he flew out into the sunshine. Thumbelina gazed after him, and tears came into her eyes, for she was truly fond of the poor swallow.

"Tweet, tweet," sang the bird, and he flew off into the green woods. Thumbelina was very sad. She was not allowed to go out into the warm sunshine at all. The corn that had been sown in the field over the field mouse's house grew high into the air, and to the poor little maiden, only an inch tall, it was a thick forest.

"Now you are betrothed, Thumbelina," said the field mouse. "The neighbor has asked for your hand. What great good fortune for a poor child like you! Now you must sew your trousseau, both woolens and linens, for nothing must be lacking when you become the mole's wife."

So Thumbelina had to turn the spindle, and the field mouse hired four spiders to spin and weave for her day and night. Every evening the mole came to visit, and he always talked about how, when the summer was over, the sun would not shine nearly so warm, for now it was baking the earth as hard as stone. Yes, when summer was over, he would hold his wedding with Thumbelina. But she was not at all glad, for she could not abide the tiresome mole. Every morning when the sun rose, and every evening when it set, she stole out to the door, and when the wind parted the ears of corn so that she could see the blue sky, she thought how bright and lovely it was out there, and longed with all her heart to see the dear swallow again. But he never came back. Surely he had flown far away into the beautiful green woods.

When autumn came, Thumbelina had her whole trousseau ready.

"In four weeks the wedding shall take place," the field mouse told her. But Thumbelina wept and said she would not have the tiresome mole.

"Fiddlesticks!" said the field mouse. "Don't be stubborn, or I shall bite you with my white teeth! It's a fine husband you're getting. The queen herself hasn't such a black velvet coat! His kitchen and cellar are full. You ought to thank heaven for such luck!"

So the wedding was to be held. The mole had already come to fetch Thumbelina away. She would live with him deep under the earth, and never come out into the warm sun, for he could not bear it. The poor little thing was very sad, for now she must say farewell to the beautiful sun, which the field mouse had at least allowed her to see from the doorway.

"Farewell, bright sun," she said, stretching her arms high, and she walked a little way past the field mouse's house, for the corn had been harvested now, and only the dry stubble was left. "Farewell, farewell," she said, and she wrapped her arms around a little red flower that still bloomed there. "Give my greetings to the little swallow, if you should ever see him."

"Tweet, tweet," came a sound suddenly over her head. She looked up, and there was the little swallow, just flying past. The moment he saw Thumbelina he was overjoyed, and she told him how she hated to take the ugly mole for a husband, and how she was to live deep under the earth where the sun never shone. She could not keep from weeping as she told him.

"The cold winter is coming now," said the little swallow. "I am flying far away to the warm lands. Will you come with me? You can sit on my back, and we'll fly away from the ugly mole and his dark rooms, far away over the mountains, to the warm lands, where the sun shines lovelier than here, where it is always summer and the flowers are glorious. Do fly away with me, dear little Thumbelina, who saved my life when I lay frozen in that dark cellar of earth."

"Yes, I will come with you," said Thumbelina, and she sat on the bird's back, with her feet on his outspread wings, and tied her sash fast to one of his strongest feathers. Then the swallow rose high into the air, over forest and sea, high up over the great mountains where the snow lies always. Thumbelina shivered in the cold air, but then she crept under the bird's warm feathers and poked out only her little head, to admire all the beautiful lands below.

At last they came to the warm lands. There the sun shone far brighter than here, and the sky seemed twice as high, and along the ditches and hedges grew the loveliest green and blue grapes. Lemons and oranges hung in the woods, the air was fragrant with myrtle and mint, and the prettiest children ran along the country roads, playing with great gaily colored butterflies. But the swallow flew on farther still, and everything grew more and more beautiful. Beneath the most splendid green trees, beside a blue lake, stood a dazzling white marble palace from the olden days. Vines twined up its tall pillars, and at the top were many swallows' nests, and in one of them lived the swallow who carried Thumbelina.

"Here is my house," said the swallow. "But it wouldn't do for you to live here with me. It isn't fit for you, and you wouldn't be content. Choose one of the splendid flowers growing down below, and I will set you upon it, and you shall have everything you could wish for."

"How wonderful," she said, and clapped her little hands for joy.

There lay a great white marble pillar that had fallen to the ground and broken into three pieces, and between them grew the loveliest large white flowers. The swallow flew down with Thumbelina and set her on one of the broad petals. But how astonished she was! There in the middle of the flower sat a tiny little man, as white and clear as if he were made of glass. On his head he wore the daintiest golden crown, and on his shoulders the loveliest wings, and he himself was no bigger than Thumbelina. He was the angel of the flower. In every flower there lived such a little man or woman, but this one was king over them all.

"Oh, how beautiful he is!" whispered Thumbelina to the swallow. The little prince was quite frightened by the swallow, for beside such a small, delicate creature the bird was a giant. But when he saw Thumbelina, he was overjoyed, for she was the loveliest maiden he had ever seen. So he took the golden crown from his own head and set it upon hers, and asked her name, and whether she would be his wife, and then she should be queen over all the flowers. Yes, here indeed was a very different sort of husband from the son of the toad, or the mole with his black velvet coat. So she said yes to the splendid prince. And out of every flower came a lady and a gentleman, so dainty that it was a delight to see them, and each brought Thumbelina a gift. But the best of all was a pair of beautiful wings that had belonged to a large white fly. They fastened them to Thumbelina's back, and now she too could fly from flower to flower. There was great rejoicing, and the little swallow sat above in his nest and was asked to sing the wedding song, which he did as well as he could, though in his heart he was sad, for he was so fond of Thumbelina and would never have wished to part from her.

"You shall not be called Thumbelina any longer," said the flower angel. "It is an ugly name, and you are far too beautiful for it. We will call you Maia."

"Farewell, farewell," said the little swallow with a heavy heart, and he flew away again from the warm lands, far back to Denmark. There he had a little nest above the window of the man who can tell fairy tales, and to him the swallow sang, "Tweet, tweet." And that is how we come to know the whole story.