Page:A Study of Fairy Tales.djvu/304

280 There were current many old stories of characters similar to Tom Thumb. A certain man was so thin that he could jump through the eye of a needle. Another crept nimbly to a spider's web which was hanging in the air, and danced skillfully upon it until a spider came, which spun a thread round his neck and throttled him. A third was able to pierce a sun-mote with his head and pass his whole body through it. A fourth was in the habit of riding an ant, but the ant threw him off and trampled him. In a work written in 1601, referred to in Grimm's Household Tales a spider relates:—

A delightful little rhyme, Tom Thumb, is among Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes. It may refer to the Danish History of Tom Thumb:—

The English version of Tom Thumb as we know it today, opens with a visit of the magician Merlin at the cottage of an honest and hospitable ploughman. Merlin rewarded the Goodman and his Wife for their hospitality by calling on the Queen of the fairies, who brought to the home, Tom Thumb, a boy no bigger than a man's thumb.

The time of the tale is in the days of Merlin and King Arthur's court. The tale is marked by a number of distinct English elements. The introduction of the Queen of the Fairies, of Fairy Land and the visit there, and of the fairy