“What a lovely flower!” the woman declared, and she planted a kiss on its beautiful red and yellow petals. With the kiss, the flower went pop! and opened up. It was a tulip, sure enough, but in the middle of it, on a little green cushion, sat a tiny girl. She was delicate and fair, but she was no taller than a thumb,3 and for that reason she came to be known by the name of Thumbelina.
A brightly polished walnut shell served as Thumbelina’s cradle. Her mattress was made from the blue petals of violets, and a rose petal became her coverlet. That was how she slept at night. In the daytime she spent her time playing on a table where the woman had placed a dish, filled with a wreath of flowers. The stems of the flowers reached into the water, and a big tulip petal floated on the surface. Thumbelina sat in it and sailed clear across the dish, using a pair of white horsehairs for oars. It was a charming sight! She could sing too, and no one had ever heard a voice as soft and sweet as hers.4
One night as she lay in her pretty bed, a hideous toad hopped in through the window5—one of the panes was broken. The repulsive toad, big and slimy, jumped right onto the table where Thumbelina was lying fast asleep under the red rose petal.
“She’ll make a perfect wife for my son!” the toad exclaimed, and she grabbed the walnut shell in which Thumbelina was sleeping and hopped off with it, out the window and into the garden.
A wide stream wound its way through the garden, and its banks were muddy and swamplike. That’s where the toad lived with her son. Ugh! He was just like his mother, ugly and horrid. “Ko-ax, ko-ax, brekke-ke-kex!” was all he could say6 when he saw the lovely little girl in the walnut shell.
“Don’t raise your voice or you will wake her up,” the old toad said. “She might get away from us yet, because she’s as light as swan’s down. We had better put her on one of those big water-lily pads out in the stream. She’s so tiny and dainty that it will seem just like an island to her. That way she can’t escape, and we’ll have a chance to fix up the parlor down in the mud for the two of you.”
There were many water lilies growing in the stream, and their big green pads looked just as if they were floating on the surface. The pad farthest away was also the largest, and the old toad swam out to it and there she left the walnut shell, with Thumbelina fast asleep in it.
The poor little thing woke up early the next morning, and when she saw where she was she began to weep bitter tears, for there was nothing but water on all sides of the big green lily pad, and she had no way to reach the shore.
W. HEATH ROBINSON
Thumbelina sleeps peacefully in her walnut-shell cradle, while a toad hops off with her, hoping that she can turn the girl into her daughter-in-law.
The old toad was sitting in the mud, decorating the parlor with reeds and yellow water lilies, for she wanted it to look elegant for her new daughter-in-law. She and her ugly son swam out to Thumbelina’s lily pad to fetch her pretty little bed, which they were hoping to set up in the bridal chamber before she arrived there herself. The old toad made a deep curtsy in the water before Thumbelina and said: “Meet my son. He is going to be your husband, and the two of you will have a delightful home down in the mud.”
“Ko-ax, ko-ax, brekke-ke-kex!” was all her son could say.
Mother and son took the comfortable little bed and swam away with it. Thumbelina was left all alone on the green lily pad, weeping, for she did not want to live with the horrid toad or marry her revolting son. The little fish swimming in the water beneath her must have seen the toad and heard her words. That’s why they poked their heads out of the water to take a look at the little girl. As soon as they set eyes on her, they felt very upset that anyone so lovely would have to go live with that vile toad. No! That was never going to happen! The fish gathered down below around the green stem holding up the lily pad. They gnawed the stalk in half with their teeth, and the lily pad began to float downstream,7 taking Thumbelina far away, to a place where the toad could never reach her.
Thumbelina sailed past so many places, and little birds perched in the bushes watched her and chanted, “What a pretty little girl!” The lily pad carrying her drifted farther and farther away, and soon Thumbelina was traveling abroad.8
A lovely little white butterfly9 kept circling around her and finally landed on the lily pad because he had grown fond of Thumbelina. She was so happy that the toad would not be able to find her. Everywhere she sailed it was beautiful: the sun was shining on the water and turning it into the loveliest golden color. Thumbelina undid her sash, tied one end of it to the butterfly, and fastened the other to the lily pad. The lily pad began to move much faster, and so did Thumbelina, for she was, of course, standing on it.
Just then a big beetle flew by and caught sight of Thumbelina. He grabbed her slender waist with his claws and flew up into a tree with her. The lily pad kept floating downstream, and the butterfly went with it, for he was still tied to the lily pad and could not get loose.
Goodness! How frightened little Thumbelina was when the beetle flew up into the tree with her. But she was much sadder when she thought about the beautiful white butterfly that she had tied to the lily pad. If he couldn’t free himself, he would end up starving to death. But the beetle wasn’t one to worry about that. He set Thumbelina down on the largest green leaf of the tree, fed her honey from the flowers, and told her how pretty she was, even if she didn’t look at all like a beetle.10 After a while, all the other beetles living in the tree came to pay a visit. They stared at Thumbelina, and all the lady-beetles shrugged their feelers and said: “Why she has only two legs—how pitiful!”
“She has no antennae!” another one shrieked. “She’s pinched in at the waist—ugh!” the lady-beetles said. “Why, she looks just like a human being. How revolting!”
Yet Thumbelina was as pretty as ever. The beetle who had kidnapped her would have agreed, but all the others kept describing her as hideous. In the end the beetle went along with them and would have nothing to do with her any longer. She could now go where she pleased. The beetles brought her down from the tree and left her on a daisy, where she sat and wept because the beetles found her so ugly and would have nothing to do with her. In truth, she was the loveliest little creature you could imagine, as delicate and radiant as the most beautiful rose petal.
ELEANOR VERE BOYLE
Thumbelina floats on top of the water on her lily pad, which is pulled by the butterfly. The fish below seem unaware of her presence.
All summer long poor Thumbelina lived alone in the deep woods. She wove a bed for herself from blades of grass and hung it under a large burdock leaf to keep the rain away. She lived on honey from the flowers, and, every morning, she drank the dew found on the leaves. Summer and fall passed in that way, but then winter arrived, the long, cold winter. All the birds that had been singing so sweetly for her flew away, and the trees and flowers began to wither. The big burdock leaf under which she had been living curled up and soon there was nothing left of it but a dead yellow stalk. She was terribly cold,11 for she was slender and frail, and the clothes she had were threadbare. Poor Thumbelina, she was sure to freeze to death! Snow began falling, and whenever a snowflake fell on her, it felt just the way that an entire shovel load would feel to us. We are, after all, quite tall, and she was only as high as a thumb. Thumbelina wrapped herself in a withered leaf, but it didn’t keep her warm at all, and she began to shiver with cold.
At the edge of the woods was a vast field of grain, but the grain had long since been harvested, and there was nothing on the frozen ground but dry, bare stubble. For Thumbelina, it was like being lost in an immense forest, and, oh, how she was shivering with cold! She reached the door of a field mouse, right where there was a little hole amid the stubble. That’s where the mouse lived, snug and cozy, with a whole storeroom of grain and a lovely kitchen and pantry. Poor Thumbelina stood at the door, just like any other beggar child, and asked for a little bit of barley corn, because she had eaten nothing for the past two days.
“You poor
little thing!” the field mouse said, for she was at heart a kind old field mouse. “Come into my warm parlor and join me for dinner.”
MABEL LUCIE ATTWELL
Thumbelina, shivering with cold, emerges from a vast forest to discover the home of the field mouse, who invites her to stay in her cozy abode.
W. HEATH ROBINSON
Thumbelina is seated on a dry leaf, shivering from the cold, when she is greeted by the field mouse.
The field mouse took a fancy to Thumbelina and said to her: “You are welcome to stay here with me for the winter, but you must keep my house nice and clean12 and tell me stories, because I’m quite fond of them.” Thumbelina did exactly what the old field mouse asked and settled in comfortably.
“We’ll be having a visitor before long,” the field mouse said. “My neighbor usually comes to see me once a week. He is even better off than I am, and his rooms are much larger. He has such a lovely black velvet fur coat.13 If you could win him as a husband, you would be set for life. But he can’t see. You’ll have to tell him the most enchanting stories you know.”14
Thumbelina was not thrilled by that idea. She did not even consider the suggestion of marrying the neighbor, for he was a mole.15 The mole came to call, wearing his black velvet coat. All the field mouse could talk about was how wealthy and learned he was and how his lodgings were twenty times the size of hers. He had erudition as well, but he did not care at all for the sun and for flowers. He had nothing good to say about them because he had never set eyes on them. Thumbelina had to sing to him, and she sang both: “Fly, Beetle, Fly, Fly Away Home” and “The Monk Walks through the Meadows.” The mole fell in love with Thumbelina when he heard her beautiful voice, but he said nothing, for he was a most discreet fellow.
The mole had just finished digging a long underground passageway from his house to theirs, and the field mouse and Thumbelina were invited to use it whenever they wanted. He told them not to be alarmed by the dead bird lying on the path. The bird still had its feathers and beak, and it must have died not long ago, just about the time when winter was settling in. Now it was buried in the very place where the mole had dug out the tunnel.
The mole picked up a piece of decaying wood, which, in the darkness, glowed like fire and worked as a torch. He walked ahead of them, lighting the way through the long dark tunnel. When they came to where the dead bird was lying, the mole shoved his broad nose against the ceiling and made a large hole through which daylight streamed. In the middle of the floor you could see the dead swallow,16 his beautiful wings pressed to his sides and his head and legs tucked under his feathers. The poor bird must have died from the cold. Thumbelina felt so very sorry for him. She loved all of the small birds because they had sung and chirped so beautifully for her all summer long. The mole gave the bird a kick with his stubby legs and declared: “That’s the end of his chirping. Nothing could be worse than coming into the world as a little bird! Thank goodness none of my children will be birds. All they do is chirp, and then, when winter comes along, they end up starving to death.”
“Yes, you’re so right, sensible man that you are,” the field mouse agreed. “What good does all that chirping do for birds in the wintertime? They just end up starving and freezing to death. But I suppose people imagine that to be very noble.”
Thumbelina did not say a word, but when the others had turned their backs on the bird, she kneeled down, smoothed the feathers that were covering 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 great pleasure you brought me, you dear, beautiful bird.”
The mole closed up the hole that let in daylight and escorted the ladies back home. That night Thumbelina did not sleep a wink. She got up and wove a beautiful coverlet out of hay, took it over to the dead bird, and spread it over him, tucking him in. She placed some soft cotton she had found in the field mouse’s parlor around the bird to keep him warm in the cold ground.
“Farewell, you beautiful little bird,” she said. “Farewell and thank you for your lovely summer song, when the trees were still green and the sun shone so warmly on us all.” Then she put her head on the bird’s breast, but felt quite frightened because it seemed as if something was making a pounding noise. It turned out to be the bird’s heart. He was not dead—he was only numb with cold, and now that he had been warmed up, he was returning to life.
In the autumn the swallows fly off to warmer climates, but if they linger, they can become so cold that they drop down as if dead. They end up lying wherever they happen to fall, and when the cold snow comes, it covers them up.
Thumbelina was so frightened that she began to tremble all over. The bird was so huge, just enormous compared to her own height of merely a thumb. But she gathered her courage, tucked the cotton closer around the poor bird, brought over the mint leaf that covered her own bed, and spread it over the bird’s head.
The following night she tiptoed back to see the bird. He was alive now, but so weak that he could barely keep his eyes open to take a look at Thumbelina, who was standing by his side with a piece of glowing wood, all the light that she had.
“Thank you, my pretty little child,” the ailing swallow said. “I feel so nice and warm again. Soon I’ll be strong enough to fly back into the warm sunshine.”
“Oh,” she replied. “It’s still cold outside—there’s snow and ice on the ground. Just stay here in your nice warm bed, and I’ll take good care of you.”17
Thumbelina found a flower petal and brought the swallow some water. He drank it and told her how he had torn his wing on a thorn bush and couldn’t keep up with the other swallows when they left to fly far away to the distant warm countries. He had finally landed on the ground. That was all he could remember, and he had no idea how he had ended up where he was.
The swallow stayed underground all winter long, and Thumbelina was kind to him and grew quite fond of him. She did not say a word to the mole or to the field mouse, for she knew that they would not care for the unfortunate swallow.
When spring arrived and the sun began to warm the earth, the swallow said farewell to Thumbelina, who opened up the hole that the mole had made overhead. The sunshine flooded in with splendor, and the swallow asked if Thumbelina wished to accompany him. She could climb on his back, and they would fly away into the green forest. But Thumbelina knew that the old field mouse would feel very sad if she left.
“No, I can’t leave,” Thumbelina said.
“Farewell, farewell, my pretty, kind child,” the swallow said as he flew out into the sunlight. Thumbelina gazed at the swallow as he departed, and tears filled her eyes, because she was so fond of him.
“Tweet, tweet,” the bird sang as he flew away into the green forest.
Thumbelina felt very sad. She wasn’t allowed to go out into the warm sunshine. And the grain sown in the ground above the field mouse’s house had grown so tall that, to a poor girl who was no bigger than a thumb, it was like a vast, dense forest.
“You must begin work this summer on your trousseau,” the field mouse told Thumbelina, because her neighbor, the loathsome mole in the black velvet coat, had already proposed to her. “You’ll need both woolens and linens. And you must have cushions and bedding once you become the mole’s wife.”
Thumbelina had to turn the spindle, and the field mouse hired four spiders to spin and weave, day and night. The mole came to call every evening, and he loved to talk about how summer would soon be over and the sun would no longer be so hot, scorching the earth and making it as hard as a rock. Yes, as soon as the summer was over, he would be marrying Thumbelina. But Thumbelina was not at all happy about it, because she did not like the dreary mole one little bit. Every morning at sunrise and every evening at sunset, she would steal out the door. When the breeze parted the ears of grain, she was able to catch glimpses of the blue sky. She would dream about how bright and beautiful it was outside, and more than anything else she wanted to see her dear swallo
w again. But he did not return, and he must have been flying far away into the beautiful green woods.
By the time autumn came, Thumbelina’s entire trousseau was ready.
“Four weeks until the wedding!” the field mouse told her. Thumbelina began to weep and declared that she had no wish to marry the dreary mole.
“Fiddlesticks,” said the field mouse. “Don’t be stubborn, or I’ll bite you with my white teeth. Why, you’re getting a superb husband. Even the queen doesn’t have a black velvet coat as fine as his. Both his kitchen and cellar are well stocked. You ought to be grateful for a fellow like that.”
The wedding day arrived. The mole had already come and was planning to take Thumbelina home with him. She would have to live deep underground and would never go out into the warm sunshine again, because he disliked it so much. The poor child felt miserable, because she had to bid farewell to the sun. At the home of the field mouse, she had at least had the chance to see it through the doorway.
“Farewell, bright sun!” she said, stretching her arms toward it as she took a few steps out of the field mouse’s house. By now, the grain had been harvested, and all that remained on the fields was dry stubble. “Farewell, farewell!” she said as she flung her tiny arms around a red flower that was still in bloom. “If you happen to see my dear swallow, please give him my love.”
“Tweet, tweet! Tweet, tweet!” she suddenly heard overhead. She looked up and there was the little swallow, flying overhead. He was overjoyed to see Thumbelina, who told him how much she hated the idea of marrying the mole and living deep under the ground where the sun never shines. She had trouble holding back her tears.
“The cold winter is on its way,” the swallow said to her. “I’m going to fly far away to the warm countries. Why don’t you come along? You can sit on my back. Just tie your sash around me,18 and we’ll fly far away from the hideous mole and his dark house—over the mountains to the warm countries where the sun shines so much more brightly than it does here and where it’s always summer, with beautiful flowers. Fly away with me, dear little Thumbelina. You saved my life when I was frozen in that dark underground cellar.”