Once upon a time, inside a beautiful tulip a little girl as big as a lady’s thumb was born. She was a gift given by a witch to a woman who longed for a baby. The baby was beautiful and had a very sweet voice. The woman was very happy with the little girl and called her Thumbelina.
Thumbelina loved to sit on a tulip petal and float on a dish of water. At night, she slept in a little cradle made out of a walnut shell. Her mother covered her with a rose petal.
One day, a toad hopped onto the window-sill where Thumbelina was asleep. The toad had a son and thought that Thumbelina would be just the right bride for him. So, she took the sleeping girl and hopped back to the stream where she lived. She swam into the stream and put her on the leaf of a water lily. Thumbelina slept on.
The morning sun woke her up and she was terrified to find that she was stuck on a leaf in the middle of a stream. On the other side, she saw the horrible old toad with her son. They were building a new home in the mud for her to live in with the son!
When Thumbelina realised that she was a prisoner and that she was to marry the toad, she burst into tears. Some of the fish heard her sobbing and came up to ask her why she was crying. “I don’t wish to marry the toad,” she wept, “And I can’t live in the mud and the damp! Oh, please help me,” she begged.
The fish were kind and they bit through the stem of the leaf on which she was stuck. The current carried the leaf along and Thumbelina got away from the toads.
Thumbelina saw a beautiful butterfly fluttering overhead. She took off the pink sash at her waist and, tying it to the butterfly, she allowed it to pull her on the leaf along the stream. She enjoyed the breeze in her hair as they floated down the stream.
But her enjoyment was cut short by a large beetle who saw her and found her so pretty that he picked her off and flew into a tree. He admired her for a while. Soon the other beetles returned and found her very peculiar. “She’s not like us,” they said, “Only two legs! Just imagine! She has no feelers either!” The beetle decided she was not so pretty after all. He dropped her onto a daisy and flew off at once.
Poor Thumbelina! She was really lost and had nowhere to go. She lived alone among the trees and flowers in the wood the whole summer. She made a hammock of grass and hung it behind a large leaf where it was safely hidden. She ate honey from the flowers and sipped the dew in the morning daily.
But soon it was winter. Snow fell all around and Thumbelina shivered in the cold. A field mouse saw her. The leaf had withered and there was nothing to protect her.
The mouse took pity on her and invited her to live in his house. “But you must clean my house and tell me stories,” he added. Thumbelina was so grateful to him that she gladly cleaned his house and told him stories.
The field mouse had a friend: Mr Mole. He was an old fellow and could not see very well. But he was a regular visitor and he liked Thumbelina’s voice. He asked the mouse to visit him and to bring Thumbelina too.
She was a little afraid of old Mr Mole, but she had to go as the mouse wished to visit his friend. Their way lay through many tunnels and it seemed a long way off to Thumbelina. Deep in the tunnel, Thumbelina saw a dead swallow and felt very sad.
They reached Mr Mole’s house, but while the mouse and Mr Mole chatted, Thumbelina’s mind was on the poor swallow. ‘He should have been flying in the sky, not lying in the tunnel underground,’ thought Thumbelina.
She woke up quietly that night when Mr Mole and the mouse were asleep, and went down the tunnel to where the swallow lay. She patted him gently and bent to stroke his head and kiss him. Suddenly, she heard his wing rustle and the faint beat of his heart. “He’s alive!” she exclaimed, delighted. She ran to get him a little water to drink.
She took the swallow to a safe place. Quietly and in secret, Thumbelina cared for him through the winter. He regained his strength and thanked the tiny girl.
One spring morning, Mr Mole told his friend that he would marry Thumbelina. She was horrified! ‘Good heavens! This is worse than living with the toads!’ she thought, ‘I’ll never see the sun again!”
That night she told her trouble to the swallow. He was strong and fit now, so he said, “Shall we fly away? You climb on my back and I’ll take you wherever you wish to go.”
Thumbelina was delighted. She swung up on to the swallow’s back and off he went, over the woods and stream, the forests and the lakes. Thumbelina looked back and saw Mr Mole’s house going further and further away!
They reached a wonderful place near a lake that glowed like a jewel in the sunshine. Near it was a lovely garden full of the most beautiful flowers. Thumbelina asked the swallow to put her down on a large white flower.
As she dropped into it, she found herself facing a little man who wore red clothes, had silvery wings and a golden crown. “I’m the spirit of this flower,” he said, “and who are you?”
“I’m Thumbelina,” she replied, “Do all flowers have spirits? Tell me quickly.”
“Yes, of course,” said the man, “I’m their King.”
The King and Thumbelina fell in love as soon as they met each other. Soon they were married and Thumbelina found she had got a pair of wings too. Now she could fly among the flowers with her husband and they lived happily ever after.
