Knjigice
Fairy tale · Classic fairy tales
Thumbelina
The tale of the tiny girl born from a flower
Also in: Palčica (Slovenian) · Palculienka (Slovak)
There was once a woman who wished so dearly for a child that she went to an old witch for advice. The witch gave her a barleycorn: "Plant it in a flowerpot and see what grows." Up came a wonderful flower, much like a tulip. When the woman kissed it, the bloom opened — and inside sat a tiny girl, scarcely as tall as a thumb. "Thumbelina shall be your name," said the woman.
1
Thumbelina slept in a cradle made of a walnut shell, under a rose-petal blanket. But one night a big brown toad hopped in through the window. "What a pretty wife for my son!" she croaked, snatched up the cradle and hopped away with it to the stream. There she set Thumbelina on a broad water-lily leaf in the middle of the water, so she could not run away.
2
When Thumbelina woke in the morning with water all around her, she cried bitterly. The little fish heard her. "Such a sweet girl, to live with a toad? Never!" They nibbled through the lily stem, and the leaf floated off down the stream. Thumbelina tied her ribbon to a white butterfly, and it pulled her on, far from the toad, past towns and meadows.
3
All summer long Thumbelina lived alone in the great meadow. She wove herself a little bed of grass blades and hung it under a big burdock leaf to keep dry. She ate sweet honey from the flowers and drank the dew that glittered on the leaves each morning. The birds sang to her, and while the sun shone, life was good.
4
But autumn came. The birds flew away, the flowers withered, and the big burdock leaf curled up into a dry yellow scroll. Snow began to fall, and to tiny Thumbelina every snowflake was like a whole shovelful of snow. Her dress of flower petals was far too thin for such cold. Shivering, she wrapped herself in a dry leaf and set out to find shelter for the winter.
5
In the middle of a stubble field she found a little door into a field mouse's burrow. "You poor little thing!" said the mouse in her apron. "Come in where it's warm, and have a bite with me." Thumbelina was allowed to stay all winter. Outside the frost bit hard; inside it smelled of grain and hay. In return she tidied the little room and told stories, and the mouse loved to listen.
6
Soon the mouse's neighbour came to visit — a mole in a velvet-black coat and tiny spectacles. He was very rich and learned, but had no love for sunshine or birds. "What good is singing!" he muttered. Still, Thumbelina had to sing for him, and he fell in love with her voice. He dug a long dark tunnel from his house to the mouse's.
7
In the dark tunnel lay a swallow with steel-blue wings, quite cold and still. "Foolish bird," said the mole. "Those who sing go hungry in winter." But Thumbelina's heart ached. When the mouse and the mole had gone, she covered the swallow with hay and laid her head on its soft breast. Then she felt it: tick-tick. The heart was still beating!
8
All winter long Thumbelina slipped away in secret to the swallow. She brought it water in a flower petal and kept it covered with warm hay. Slowly the swallow opened its eyes. "Thank you, tiny girl," it whispered. "A thorn hurt my wing, so I could not fly south with the others." When spring came, the swallow could fly once more.
9
"Fly with me to the greenwood!" called the swallow. But Thumbelina would not leave the kind mouse, and so the swallow flew away alone. Then the mouse said: "In the autumn you shall marry the mole. He is rich, and you will want for nothing." Thumbelina had to spin and sew for her wedding chest, but every evening she looked sadly up at the sky.
10
The wedding day came. The mole was to take Thumbelina deep underground, where the sun never shines. "Farewell, sun!" said Thumbelina, stretching her arms toward the light one last time. Then, from above her: "Tweet-tweet!" Her swallow! "Winter is coming and I am flying south. Sit on my back, Thumbelina, and fly with me!"
11
Thumbelina climbed onto the swallow's back, and they flew over forests, mountains and the sea to the warm lands where everything was in bloom. The swallow set her down in the loveliest white flower. And there stood a tiny prince with thin transparent wings, just as small as she was. "Never have I seen so lovely a girl," he said, and took off his golden crown.
12
"Will you be my queen, the queen of all the flowers?" asked the prince. Thumbelina joyfully said yes. From every flower a tiny inhabitant brought her a gift — and the loveliest gift of all was a pair of transparent wings, so she could fly from flower to flower. "From now on your name shall be Maia," said the prince. And the swallow sang them its sweetest song.
13The End
