Thumbelina: Born from a Flower

THUMBELINA — PART ONE: BORN FROM A FLOWER

There was once a woman who wanted very much to have a little child, but she did not know where to find one. So she went to an old witch and said, "I would so very much like to have a little child. Can you tell me where I can find one?"

"Oh, that is easy," said the witch. "Here is a barleycorn. It is not the same kind that grows in the farmer's field or that the chickens eat. Put it in a flowerpot and watch what happens."

"Thank you," said the woman. She gave the witch twelve pennies and went home. She planted the barleycorn in a flowerpot. Right away, a big beautiful flower grew up. It looked just like a tulip. But its petals were closed tight, like a bud.

"What a pretty flower," said the woman. She kissed the red and yellow petals.

And just as she kissed them — pop! — the flower opened wide. Inside sat a tiny little girl. She was so small and delicate. She was no bigger than your thumb. So the woman called her Thumbelina.

A polished walnut shell was her cradle. Blue violet petals were her mattress. A rose petal was her blanket. She slept there at night. In the daytime she played on the table. The woman had put a plate of water there, with flowers all around the edge. A big tulip petal floated on the water like a boat. Thumbelina sat in it and rowed herself from one side to the other. She used two white horsehairs as oars. It was very pretty to watch. She could sing, too. Her voice was the sweetest, softest voice anyone had ever heard.

One night, while Thumbelina slept in her cradle, a big ugly toad came hopping through the broken window. The toad was wet and cold. She jumped right up onto the table where Thumbelina was sleeping under her rose petal blanket.

"She would make a fine wife for my son," said the toad. She picked up the walnut shell with Thumbelina still sleeping inside and hopped away through the window, down into the garden.

A wide stream ran through the garden. The banks were soft and muddy. That is where the toad lived with her son. He was ugly and cold and damp, just like his mother. "Croak, croak, croak!" That was all he could say when he saw the tiny girl in the walnut shell.

"Not so loud," said his mother. "She will wake up and run away. We must put her on a lily pad in the middle of the stream. She is so small and light that she cannot escape from there. While she is stuck, we will get the big mud room ready for you both to live in."

Out in the stream there grew many water lilies with big flat green leaves. The leaf that was farthest from the bank was also the biggest. The mother toad swam out and put Thumbelina's walnut shell cradle on top of it.

Poor little Thumbelina woke up very early the next morning. She saw where she was and she began to cry. There was water all around the big green leaf. She could not reach the shore at all.

The old mother toad swam out with her ugly son to visit her. "Here is my son," she said. "He will be your husband. You will live very happily together in the mud."

"Croak, croak, croak!" was all the son said.

They took Thumbelina's pretty cradle away to decorate the wedding room. Then they swam off and left her all alone on the green leaf.

Thumbelina sat and cried. She did not want to live with the ugly toad. She did not want to marry his ugly son.

The little fish swimming in the water below had seen the toad and heard what she said. They poked their heads up to look at Thumbelina. When they saw how pretty she was, they felt very sorry. They did not want the ugly toad to marry her. So they gathered around the stem of the leaf she was sitting on and nibbled through it with their teeth. The leaf floated away down the stream, far away where the toad could not follow.

Thumbelina sailed past many towns. Little birds sitting in the bushes saw her and sang out, "What a lovely little girl!" The leaf carried her farther and farther. At last it carried her out of the country altogether.

A pretty white butterfly kept flying around her and then settled on the leaf. He liked Thumbelina very much. She was happy now. The toads could not reach her anymore. Everything around her was beautiful. The sun shone on the water and it sparkled like gold. She took off her belt and tied one end to the butterfly and the other end to the leaf. Now the leaf sailed along much faster, and she sailed with it.

Just then a big cockchafer beetle came flying by. He saw Thumbelina and grabbed her around her small waist and flew up into a tree with her. The green leaf floated away down the stream, and the butterfly had to go with it because he was tied to it and could not get free.

Oh, how frightened poor little Thumbelina was when the beetle flew up into the tree with her! But she was even more sad about the beautiful white butterfly. He was tied to the leaf and could not get away. If no one came to help him, he would starve.

But the beetle did not care about that. He sat down with her on the biggest, greenest leaf in the tree. He brought her sweet flowers to eat and told her she was very pretty, even though she was not at all like a beetle. After a while, all the other beetles who lived in the tree came to visit. They looked at Thumbelina and the young lady beetles shook their feelers. "She only has two legs," they said. "How sad." "She has no feelers at all." "Her middle is so thin. She looks almost like a person. How ugly she is," said all the lady beetles.

Thumbelina was really very pretty. Even the beetle who had taken her thought so. But when all the others said she was ugly, he began to believe it too. He decided he did not want her anymore. She could go wherever she liked. He flew down from the tree with her and put her on a daisy. She sat there and cried because she was so ugly that even the beetles would not keep her. And really she was one of the most beautiful little things you could ever imagine, as soft and bright as the prettiest rose petal.

All through the summer poor little Thumbelina lived alone in the big forest. She wove herself a bed out of grass and hung it up under a big dock leaf to keep the rain off. She collected honey from flowers for her food. She drank the dew that sat on the leaves each morning. Summer passed and autumn came. Then winter came — long, cold winter. All the birds who had sung so sweetly for her flew away. The trees and flowers lost their leaves. The big dock leaf she had lived under shrivelled up and turned to nothing but a dry yellow stalk. She was terribly cold. Her clothes were worn to rags. She was so small and thin. Poor little Thumbelina would freeze to death.

Snow began to fall. Every snowflake that fell on her was like a whole shovelful of snow falling on one of us, because we are so big and she was so very small. She wrapped herself in a dry leaf but it would not keep her warm. She shivered with cold.

Just outside the forest where she had been living, there was a big cornfield. The corn had been cut long ago and only the dry bare stubble stuck up from the frozen ground. To Thumbelina it was like walking through a thick forest. She walked and walked, trembling with cold. At last she came to the door of a field mouse's house. The field mouse had a little hole under the corn stubble. She was warm and cosy inside. She had a whole roomful of corn and a fine kitchen and a dining room. Poor little Thumbelina stood at the door like a little beggar girl and asked for a small piece of barleycorn. She had not eaten anything at all for two days.

"You poor little thing," said the field mouse, who was a kind old thing at heart. "Come into my warm room and have some dinner with me."

She liked Thumbelina very much. "You may stay with me through the winter if you like," she said. "But you must keep my rooms clean and tidy and tell me stories. I do love stories." And Thumbelina did everything the kind old field mouse asked, and she was very happy there.

"We will soon have a visitor," said the field mouse one day. "My neighbour comes to see me every week. He has an even better house than mine. He wears a beautiful black velvet coat. If only you could have him for your husband, you would be very well taken care of. But he cannot see at all. You must tell him the prett