This story was always one of my all time favorites as a child. I use to pretend I was Thumbelina because I was small for my age. The best part of the story to me was when she nursed the swallow to good health and then helped her escape the mole. No wonder I like to work at The American Red Cross!
When the story begins, a woman receives a magic seed from a crone. Once planted, a tiny girl emerges from its flower. The woman names the child Thumbelina.
One night, Thumbelina is asleep in her walnut-shell cradle and is carried off by a toad who wants the miniature girl as a daughter-in-law. Thumbelina escapes the toad and her son, and drifts on a lily pad until becoming the captive of a beetle.
The beetle discards her when his friends reject her company. Thumbelina tries to protect herself from the elements but when winter comes she is in desperate straits.
She is finally given shelter by a field mouse and tends the mouse's home in return. The mouse suggests Thumbelina marry her neighbor, a mole. Thumbelina finds the prospect of being married to a mole unattractive and escapes the situation by fleeing to a far land with a swallow she nursed back to health during the winter.
In a field of flowers, Thumbelina meets a fairy prince just her size and they wed. Thumbelina receives a pair of wings to accompany her husband on his travels from flower to flower.
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