A Tiny Beginning

A woman who longed for a child bought a special barley seed from a fairy. She had asked whether there was any way for her wish to come true.

She planted the seed in a flowerpot, and it grew into a flower with its petals still closed. The bud looked like a beautiful tulip.

When the woman kissed the flower, it opened and revealed a tiny young woman called Thumbelina. She was scarcely an inch tall.

Thumbelina slept in a walnut-shell cradle, with violet leaves for bedding and a rose petal for a quilt. During the day, she floated on a tulip leaf in a plate of water.

One night a mother toad came through a broken window and carried away Thumbelina’s cradle. She wanted Thumbelina to marry her son. The tiny maiden was asleep beneath her rose-petal quilt.

The toad put her on a lily leaf in the stream so she could not escape before that unwanted marriage. The son was a small toad who could only croak.