Thumbelina

Once there was a woman who wished with all her heart for a child, even a very tiny one. She went to an old sorceress, and the sorceress gave her a grain of barley.

"Plant it in a flowerpot," said the sorceress. "You will see what grows."

The woman planted the grain, and by the next day a green shoot was poking out of the earth, and after it came a big flower that looked like a tulip. Its petals were folded tightly shut, as if the flower were still thinking something over.

"How lovely you are!" said the woman, and she kissed the red petals.

Pop! The flower opened. And inside, on the green middle of the flower, sat a girl no bigger than an inch, that is, the top joint of a finger. That is why they called her Thumbelina.

Her bed was a walnut shell, her mattress was made of violet petals, and her blanket was a rose petal. In the daytime the woman set a plate of water on the table and laid a tulip petal on it, and Thumbelina sailed about on it as if in a little boat, rowing with two white horsehairs. And she sang, very softly, more sweetly than anyone had ever heard.

One night, while Thumbelina slept in her shell, a toad came hop-hop through the broken windowpane. A big one, wet, covered in warts.

"Here is a bride for my son!" she croaked. She snatched up the shell with the girl inside it and hopped away to the marsh.

Her son was just like his mother, only lazier. He looked at Thumbelina and said nothing but:

"Croak, croak, brekke-ke-kex!"

"Hush, you’ll wake her," the toad scolded. "She might run away. She is as light as swan’s down. We’ll put her on a water-lily leaf in the middle of the river. She can’t escape from there, and meanwhile we’ll tidy up the house."

In the morning Thumbelina woke up on a green leaf with water all around and the shore far away, and she cried bitterly. The toad swam up with her son and bowed right down to the water.

"Here is my boy, your bridegroom. You will live in the mud, and you will live well!"

"Croak, croak, brekke-ke-kex!" was all the son added.

Under the leaf, little fish were swimming. They had heard everything and poked their heads out of the water.

"Such a sweet little thing, and sent to a swamp? That won’t do!" the fish decided.

Together they took hold of the stem that held the leaf, and they gnawed and gnawed until, crunch! it broke through. The leaf floated away with the current, far, far away, where the toads could no longer catch it. A white butterfly circled over Thumbelina and settled on the leaf. The girl took off her sash, tied one end to the butterfly and the other to the leaf, and the leaf raced along even faster.

Then, bzzum! a big cockchafer beetle flew down. He seized Thumbelina in his claws and carried her up into a tree. The butterfly flew on his way, and the girl sat on a branch, trembling.

The beetle treated her to honey and told her she was very pretty, even though she looked nothing like a beetle. But then other beetles came to visit. The lady beetles wiggled their feelers and sniffed:

"She has only two legs!"

"And no feelers!"

"Such a thin waist, ugh! Exactly like a human!"

The beetle listened and listened, and in the end he believed it himself, that Thumbelina was ugly. He carried her down and set her on a daisy.

"Fly wherever you like."

But she could not fly. The girl sat on the daisy and cried, because she thought she was so ugly that even beetles did not want her. And yet she was the loveliest girl you could possibly imagine.

All summer Thumbelina lived alone in the forest. She wove herself a little hammock of grass and hung it under a burdock leaf so the rain would not wet her. She ate flower nectar and drank the dew. But summer passed, autumn passed, and winter came. The birds who had sung to her flew away, the burdock withered, and the snowflakes fell on her as if someone were throwing a whole shovelful of snow at her.

Freezing cold, Thumbelina made her way to the house of a field mouse under the stubble.

"Oh, you poor thing!" said the mouse, clasping her paws. "Come in and warm yourself. Stay all winter, only tidy up for me and tell me stories, because I love stories very much."

So Thumbelina came to live with the mouse. The mouse had a neighbor, a mole. He wore a black velvet coat and had big storerooms and a big house, but he could not see a thing. He did not like the sun, he did not like flowers, because he had never seen them, and he spoke of them only badly.

"There’s a bridegroom for you!" the mouse whispered. "Rich, and in a fur coat!"

The mole dug a long passage from his house to the mouse’s and invited his neighbors for a walk. And in the middle of the passage lay a swallow. Her wings were pressed to her sides, her feet tucked in. She had probably frozen to death.

"Sang and sang all summer," the mole grumbled, and he nudged her with his foot. "And look where it got her. It’s a good thing my children won’t be birds."

Thumbelina said nothing. But at night she could not sleep. She wove a blanket out of hay, crept into the passage and covered the swallow. She snuggled up to her, and there it was: thump... thump... thump! A heartbeat! The swallow was not frozen, only stiff with cold.

Thumbelina was frightened, because the swallow was enormous and she herself was no bigger than a swallow’s feather. But she did not run away. All winter she secretly brought her water in a mint leaf and kept her warm.

In spring, when the sun warmed the earth, the swallow said:

"Climb on my back, and let’s fly to the green forest!"

"No," sighed Thumbelina. "The mouse will be sad if I leave like this."

"Then goodbye, kind girl!" And the swallow soared up into the sunlight.

Thumbelina felt so sad. Now the mouse would not let her outdoors, because there was a trousseau to sew. The mole really did propose, and four little spiders spun cloth for her day and night. Every evening the mole came in his coat and said the wedding would be in autumn, when the sun would no longer burn so fiercely.

"I don’t want to marry him," Thumbelina said quietly.

"Nonsense!" the mouse snorted. "Don’t make things up! Such a bridegroom, in such a coat! The queen herself has no such coat!"

And then autumn came, and with it the wedding day. Thumbelina stepped over the threshold to say goodbye to the sun.

"Goodbye, bright sun!" she said, and she hugged a little red flower that grew by the burrow. "If you see the swallow, give her my greetings."

"Tweet, tweet!" came a sound right above her head.

It was the swallow! She had heard that Thumbelina was being given to a mole who lived underground, where the sun never looks in.

"Winter will soon be back," said the swallow, "and I am flying to the warm lands. Come with me! You saved me, now I will save you."

This time Thumbelina did not hesitate. She climbed onto the swallow’s back, tied herself with her sash to the strongest feather, and off they flew, over forests, over seas, over mountains where snow lay. When it grew cold, Thumbelina hid in the warm feathers.

At last they came to the warm land. There the sun shone brighter, lemons and oranges grew on the trees, and beside a blue lake stood an old palace of white marble. The swallow set Thumbelina on a big white flower. And what did she see? In the middle of the flower sat a little man, clear as glass, as tiny as she was. On his head he wore a golden crown, and on his shoulders there were shining wings. In every flower here lived such an elf, and he was their king.

"How lovely you are!" said the little king. He did not say "croak, croak," he did not count anyone’s legs, and he did not like the dark. He took off his crown and put it on Thumbelina’s head. "Be queen of all the flowers!"

Thumbelina agreed. Elves flew out of every flower and brought her gifts, and the best gift of all was a pair of clear wings. Now she could fly from flower to flower, too. And they gave her a new name, Maya, because such a lovely girl deserves a lovely name.

In autumn the swallow flew back north, to her nest above the window. There lived a man who could tell stories. She sang "tweet, tweet" to him, and he wrote it all down, down to the last word. That is how we know how a tiny girl, who once warmed someone else’s heart, found her own spring.