Thumbelina

There was once a woman who longed so very much to have a little child, but she did not know where to find one. At last she went to an old wise-woman and said: 'I wish with all my heart for a little child. Can you tell me where I might find one?' 'That is easily done,' answered the wise-woman. 'Here is a barleycorn of a special kind, not the kind the hens peck in the field. Plant it in a flower-pot, and you shall see what happens.' The woman thanked her and gave her twelve silver coins. Then she went home and planted the grain.

At once a great and beautiful flower sprang up from the pot, and it looked like a tulip, though its petals were tightly closed as if it were still a bud. 'What a lovely flower,' said the woman, and she kissed the red and gold-colored leaves. The very moment she did, the flower opened with a soft sigh. And inside the flower, upon the green velvet stamens, sat a tiny little girl. She was scarcely half as tall as a thumb, and so they called her Thumbelina. A polished walnut-shell became her cradle. Her bed was made of blue violet-leaves, with a rose-petal for a counterpane. Thumbelina could sing so softly and sweetly that nobody had ever heard the like.

One night, while Thumbelina lay in her sweet little bed, a large, ugly, wet toad crept through a broken pane in the window. She leapt straight up onto the table where Thumbelina slept under her rose-petal quilt. 'What a sweet little wife she would make for my son,' said the toad, and she took up the walnut-shell with Thumbelina inside, and hopped out of the window into the garden. At the swampy edge of a wide stream in the garden lived the toad with her son. He was even uglier than his mother, and when he saw the pretty little maiden in her elegant bed, he could only say: 'Croak, croak, croak.'

'Do not speak so loud, or she will wake,' said the toad. 'She is as light as swan's-down. We will put her on one of the water-lily leaves out in the stream. It will be like a little island to her, so small and light as she is, and then she cannot escape. And while she is out there, we will make ready the bridal chamber under the marsh.' Far out in the stream grew water-lilies with broad green leaves. The very largest floated a good way farther off than the rest, and out to it the old toad swam with the walnut-shell, in which little Thumbelina still slept. Early in the morning she awoke and began to cry bitterly, for she saw nothing but water on every side, and could not reach the land.