Thumbelina
A girl no bigger than a thumb, a long journey through toad, beetle and winter, and a kindness that carries her home
Page 1
Once there was a kind woman who wished with all her heart for a little child of her own. She went to a wise old neighbour, who gave her a single barleycorn and told her to plant it in a flowerpot and wait. The woman planted it and watered it, and almost at once a fine green shoot sprang up and swelled into a bud like a tulip, tightly closed. "What a lovely flower," the woman said, and kissed its silky petals — and at her kiss the bud burst softly open. There, sitting in the very middle of the blossom upon the soft green seat, was a tiny, delicate girl, perfect in every way and no taller than a thumb. The woman gasped with joy and called her Thumbelina, and loved her dearly from that first moment.
Page 2
Thumbelina made her home upon the table, and nothing could have been prettier. She slept in a little bed made from a polished walnut shell, with blue violet petals for a mattress and a rose leaf for a blanket. By day she would sail to and fro across a plate of water the woman set out for her, using two white horse-hairs for oars and a bright tulip petal for a boat, singing all the while in the sweetest, smallest voice anyone ever heard. The kind woman loved to listen to her. Thumbelina was perfectly happy, and the cottage was warm and safe. But the wide world outside was full of creatures who had never seen anything so lovely as a girl no bigger than a thumb — and before long, one of them would come looking.
Page 3
One summer night, while Thumbelina lay fast asleep in her walnut shell, a big old toad came hopping in through a broken pane. "What a pretty little wife she would make for my son," croaked the toad, and she carried the shell, Thumbelina and all, out through the window and down to the muddy river. To keep the tiny girl from running away, the toad set her upon a broad green lily leaf far out in the middle of the stream, where the water ran deep on every side. When Thumbelina woke and found herself alone on a floating leaf, with no way to reach the shore, she sat down and wept bitterly. The homely toad only blinked at her from the reeds and planned the wedding, never guessing how unhappy the little creature truly was.
Page 4
The little fishes swimming below the water had heard everything, and they felt so sorry for Thumbelina that they gathered round the stem of her lily leaf and nibbled it through, until the leaf broke free and went floating away down the river, carrying her far from the toad. Thumbelina sailed on past reeds and banks and villages, glad to be free, while butterflies and dragonflies danced about her. But just then a large brown cockchafer beetle came whirring by, caught her up in his legs, and flew with her up into a tall tree. Thumbelina was frightened at first — yet she was sorry to leave her little leaf-boat drifting on, and she could only wonder where in the wide green world this strange new creature meant to take her now.
Page 5
High in the tree the cockchafer set Thumbelina upon a broad leaf and brought all his beetle friends to admire her. But the lady beetles turned up their feelers and said she was really very plain — she had only two legs, and no feelers at all, and that was a pitiful thing indeed. The young cockchafer, who had thought her the loveliest creature alive, now believed his friends and lost all interest in her. He carried her down from the tree and left her sitting quite alone upon a daisy in the grass. Thumbelina wept to hear herself called ugly, when she was truly as sweet and pretty as a flower. But she dried her eyes, for weeping would not help her, and set about living bravely on her own through the long bright summer.
Page 6
All through the warm summer Thumbelina lived alone in the wood. She wove herself a bed of grass, hung it under a broad leaf to keep off the rain, drank the dew from the leaves each morning, and ate the honey from the flowers. The birds sang to her, and she was not unhappy. But summer passed, and autumn, and then the cold came. The birds that had sung so sweetly flew away. The flowers withered, and the great leaf above her curled up and blew off in the wind. Snow began to fall, and each soft flake that would scarcely wet a person's hand fell upon the tiny girl like a whole shovelful. She wrapped herself in a withered leaf, shivering, lost and hungry in a vast bare field, and set out to find some shelter from the bitter winter.
Page 7
At the edge of the field Thumbelina found the little door of a field mouse's burrow, snug and warm under the stubble. The kindly field mouse took the shivering girl in, gave her corn to eat, and let her stay for the winter in exchange for keeping the burrow tidy and telling stories. Thumbelina was grateful for the warmth. But the mouse had a rich neighbour — a stout mole in a fine velvet-black coat, very learned and very dull, who came visiting through a tunnel he had dug between their houses. The mole thought Thumbelina charming and resolved to marry her, and the field mouse was delighted at such a grand match. Thumbelina's heart sank, for the mole never saw the sun and cared nothing for the birds or the flowers that she loved — but she was too polite to say so.
Page 8
In the long dark tunnel the mole had dug, Thumbelina came upon a swallow lying cold and quite still upon the earth, its beautiful wings folded close. Everyone said the poor bird was surely dead, killed by the winter; the mole kicked at it crossly and the field mouse had no pity. But Thumbelina knelt by the swallow and felt her heart fill with sorrow, for she dearly loved the birds that had sung to her all summer. In secret she wove a warm blanket of hay and carpet of dry leaves and tucked it gently round the sleeping bird, keeping it warm night after night all through the cold. And one quiet day she laid her tiny head against its breast and heard, faint but sure, a heartbeat — the swallow was only sleeping, and her kindness had helped to wake him.
Page 9
When spring came at last, the swallow was well and strong again, warmed back to life by Thumbelina's long kindness. But the day of her wedding to the dull mole drew near, and the little girl grieved to think she must spend all her days underground, never seeing the sun or the flowers again. On the morning she was to be married, she slipped out to say goodbye to the sun one last time — and there was the swallow, waiting. "Climb upon my back," he said, "and I will carry you far away from the dark, to the warm lands where the sun always shines!" Thumbelina seated herself, tied her sash to a strong feather, and up they soared, over forests and seas and snowy mountains, into the blue, free at last, toward a country full of flowers.
Page 10
The swallow set Thumbelina down upon the petals of a great gleaming white flower in the warm southern land. And there, to her astonishment, sat a tiny man no bigger than herself — the king of all the flowers, with a slender gold crown and a pair of shining wings, one living in each blossom around her. He thought Thumbelina the loveliest creature he had ever seen, and she thought the same of him, for here at last was someone exactly her own size, who loved the sun and the flowers just as she did. He gave her a pair of gossamer wings of her own, so she could fly from flower to flower, and a new name among the flower-folk. And so the tiny girl who had been carried off by a toad and lost in the snow found, in the end, exactly where she belonged — and she was happy all her days.
About this story
- Audience: kids (ages 6–12)
Read Wonder Tales on your phone
Wonder Tales is available on Android. Get Wonder Tales on Google Play.