Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/341



HERE was once upon a time a woman who wanted so much to have a tiny child, but she did not know where she could get one, so she went to an old witch and said to her: "I would like so very much to have a little child! Will you tell me where I can get one?"

Oh, yes! that can easily be managed!" said the witch. "Here is a barleycorn, but it is not of the sort that grows in the farmers' fields or the fowls get to eat. Put that into a flower-pot, and then you will see something!"

"Thank you!" said the woman, and gave the witch sixpence. She then went home and planted the barleycorn, and immediately a large, beautiful flower grew up, which was quite like a tulip, but its petals were tightly closed, just as it it were still a bud.

"What a beautiful flower!" said the woman, and kissed its lovely red and yellow petals; but just as she kissed the flower, it gave a loud report and opened its petals. It was a real tulip,—one could see that,—but in the middle of the flower, on the green stamens, sat a tiny little girl, most delicate and beautiful to look at. She was scarcely half the size of one's thumb, and therefore she was called Thumbeline.

For a cradle she had a pretty, lacquered walnut shell, for mattresses blue violet leaves, and for a coverlet a rose leaf. There she slept at night, but in the daytime she played about on the table where the woman had put a plate with a wreath of flowers around it, their stalks reaching down into the water. On this a large tulip leaf was floating about, and on this Thumbeline sat and sailed from one side of the plate to the other. She used two white horse-hairs to row with. It was a pretty sight! She could also sing, and her song was so sweet and beautiful that nothing like it had ever been heard before.

One night as she lay in her pretty bed an ugly toad jumped in through the window, in which there was a broken pane. The toad, a very ugly, big, and wet creature, jumped down on the table where Thumbeline lay asleep under the red rose leaf.

"That would be a beautiful wife for my son!" said the toad, and so she took the walnut shell in which Thumbeline was sleeping, and jumped through the window down into the garden with her.