Thumbling

Once upon a time there wasThere was once a poor peasant who sat in the evening by the hearth and poked the fire, and his wife sat beside him, spinning threadand span. Then he saidsaid he, “How sad it is that we have no children! EverythingWith us all is so quiet herequiet, and in other houses it is noisy and lively.”

“Yes,” replied the wife, and sighed, “even if we had only one, and it were quite small, and only as big as a thumb, I would be quite happyI should be quite satisfied, and we would still love it with all our hearts.” Then the woman fell illNow it so happened that the woman fell ill, and after seven months gave birth to a child, whose bodythat was perfectly formedperfect in all its limbs, but no longer than a thumb. Then they saidsaid they, “He is just as we wished, and we will love him dearly.” And because he was so small, they called him“It is as we wished it to be, and it shall be our dear child;” and because of its size, they called it Thumbling. They made sure he had enough to eatdid not let it want for food, but the child did not grow taller. He, but remained just as small as at first. Yet heas it had an intelligent look in his eyesbeen at the first, nevertheless it looked sensibly out of its eyes, and soon provedshowed itself to be clevera wise and nimble  creature, for everything heit did turned out well.

One day the peasant was getting ready to go into the forest to cut wood, when he said to himselfwhen he said as if to himself, “How I wish that there were someone to bring the cart to methere was any one who would bring the cart to me!” “Oh father,” cried Thumbling, “I’ll bring the cart, you can count on me! It will be in the forest at the agreed timeI will soon bring the cart, rely on that; it shall be in the forest at the appointed time.” The man smiled and said, “How could you do that? You are far too small to lead the horse by the reins!How can that be done, thou art far too small to lead the horse by the reins?” “That doesn’t matterThat’s of no consequence, father, if Mother fastens the horse to the cart, I’ll sit in his ear and call out which way to goif my mother will only harness it, I shall sit in the horse’s ear and call out to him how he is to go.” “Well,” answered the man, “let’s give it a tryfor once we will try it.”

When the time came, the mother fastened the horse to the cartthe mother harnessed the horse, and placed Thumbling in its ear, and then the little creature cried, “Giddy-up, giddy-up!Gee up, gee up!”

The horseThen it went along just as wellquite properly as if  with its master were drivingmaster, and the cart went the right way into the forest. Just as the horse was turning a corner and the little one was calling, “Giddy-up,” two strangers came towards them.It so happened that just as he was turning a corner, and the little one was crying, “Gee up,” two strange men came towards him. “My word!” said one of them, “What is this? There is a cart coming, and someone is calling to the horse, but there’s nobody to be seena driver is calling to the horse and still he is not to be seen!” “That can’t be right,” said the other, “we will follow the cart and see where it stops.” The cart, however, drove right into the forest, and exactly to the place where the wood had been cut. When Thumbling saw his father, he cried to him, “You seeSeest thou, father, here I am with the cart; now take me down.” The father got hold of the horse with his left hand and with the right took his little son out of the ear. Thumbling sat down happily on a stalk of strawThumbling sat down quite merrily on a straw, but when the two strange men saw him, they were so astonished that they did not know what to saythey did not know what to say for astonishment. Then one of them took the other aside and said, “ListenHark, the little fellow would make our fortune if we charged peopleexhibited him in a large town to see him, for money. We will buy him.” They went to the peasant and said, “Sell us the little man. We will treat him wellHe shall be well treated with us.” “No,” replied the father, “he is the apple of my eye, and all the money in the world cannot buy him from me.” Thumbling, however, when he heard them discussing the salewhen he heard of the bargain, had crept up the folds of his father’s coat, placed himself on his shoulder, and whispered in his ear, “Father, let me go with them. I will soon come back again.Father do give me away, I will soon come back again.” Then the father sold him to the two men for a good sum of moneyparted with him to the two men for a handsome bit of money. “Where will youwilt thou sit?” they said to him. “Oh just set me on the rim of your hat, and then I can walk back and forth and look at the countrysidewalk backwards and forwards and look at the country, and still not fall down.” They did as he wished, and when Thumbling had said goodbye to his fatherhad taken leave of his father, they went away with him. They walked until it was dusk, and then the little fellow said, “Do take me down, I want to come down.” The man took his hat off, and put the little fellow on the ground beside the roadby the wayside, and he leapt and crept about a little between the clumps of grasssods, and then he suddenly slipped into a mouse-hole which he had picked as a hiding placewhich he had sought out. “Good evening, gentlemen, just go home without me,” he cried to them, and mocked them. They ran overthither and poked sticks into the mouse-holestuck their sticks into the mouse-hole, but it was no usebut it was all lost labour. Thumbling crept still farther in, and as it soon became quite dark, they were forced to go home angrywith their vexation and withtheir empty purses.

When Thumbling saw that they were gone, he crept back out of the undergroundsubterranean passage. “It is so dangerous to walk on the ground in the dark,” said he; “I could so easily break my neck or a leg!how easily a neck or a leg is broken!” Fortunately he knocked against an empty snail-shell. “Thank God!” said he. “I can spend the night safely in thereIn that I can pass the night in safety,” and got into it. Not long afterwards, when he was just going to sleep, he heard two men go by, and one of them was saying, “How can weshall we contrive to get hold of the rich pastor’s silver and gold?” “I could tell youthee that,” cried Thumbling, interrupting them. “What was that?” said one of the thieves in fright, “I heard someonesome one speaking.” They stood still listening, and Thumbling spoke again, and said, “Take me with you, and I’ll help you.”

“But where are youart thou?” “Just look on the ground, and listen for where my voice is coming fromobserve from whence my voice comes,” he replied. At last the thieves found him thereThere the thieves at length found him, and lifted him up. “You little rascal, how can you help us?Thou little imp, how wilt thou help us?” they said. “A great deal,” said he, “I will squeeze between the iron bars into the pastor’s roomcreep into the pastor’s room through the iron bars, and will pass outreach out to you whatever you want  to have.” “Come then,” they said, “and we will see what you canthou canst do.” When they got to the pastor’s house, Thumbling crept into the room, but instantly cried out with all his might, “Do you want to have everything that is here?” The thieves were alarmed, and said, “But do speak softly, so you don’t wake anyoneso as not to waken any one!” Thumbling however, behaved as if he had not understood this, and cried again, “What do you want? Do you want to have everything that is here?” The cook, who slept in the next room, heard this and sat up in bed, and listened. The frightened thieves had run some distance away, but at last they found their courage againThe thieves, however, had in their fright run some distance away, but at last they took courage, and thought, “The little rascal wants to mock us.” They came back and whispered to him, “Come, be serious, and passreach something out to us.” Then Thumbling again cried as loudly as he could, “I really will give you everything, just put your hands in.” The maid who was listening, heard this quite distinctly, and jumped out of bed and rushed to the door. The thieves took flight, and ran as if the Wild Huntsman, the ghostly hunter of old legends,Huntsman were chasingbehind them, but as the maid could not see anything, she went to getstrike a light. When she came to the place with it, Thumbling slipped unseen into, unperceived, betook himself to the grain storegranary, and the maid, after she had examined every corner and found nothing, lay down in her bed again, and believed that, after all, she had only been dreaming with open eyes and ears.

Thumbling had climbed up among the hay and found a beautiful place to sleep in; there he intended to rest until day, and then go home again to his parents. But there were more troubles ahead of himhe had other things to go through. Truly, there is much sufferingaffliction and misery in this world! When day dawned, the maid got out of bedthe maid arose from her bed to feed the cows. She first went into the barn and picked up an armful of hay: the very one in which poor Thumbling was lying asleep.Her first walk was into the barn, where she laid hold of an armful of hay, and precisely that very one in which poor Thumbling was lying asleep. He was sleeping so soundly that he noticed nothing. He only woke up inside the cow’s mouth: sheHe, however, was sleeping so soundly that he was aware of nothing, and did not awake until he was in the mouth of the cow, who had picked him up with the hay. “Ah, heavens!” cried he, “how did I end up in a machine that pounds cloth?how have I got into the fulling mill?” but he soon discovered where he was. He hadThen it was necessaryExplanation: The danger of the cow’s teeth remains; the explicit reference to dismemberment is omitted. to be careful not to get caughtlet himself go between the teeth  and be dismembered, but he was  nevertheless forced to slip down into the stomach with the hay. “They forgot to put windows inIn this little room  the windows are forgotten,” said he, “No sunlight comes in, and nobody brings a candleand no sun shines in, neither will a candle be brought.” He did not like his new home at allHis quarters were especially unpleasing to him, and the worst was, more and more hay was always coming in by the door, and the space grew less and less. At last, terrifiedThen at length in his anguish, he cried as loud as he could, “Don’t send in any more hay! Don’t send in any more hay!Bring me no more fodder, bring me no more fodder.” The maid was just milking the cow. She heard someone speaking but could see no one. When she recognized the voice from the night before, she was so terrified that she slipped off her stoolcow, and when she heard some one speaking, and saw no one, and perceived that it was the same voice that she had heard in the night, she was so terrified that she slipped off her stool, and spilt the milk. She hurried to her masterShe ran in great haste to her master, and said, “Oh heavens, pastor, the cow has been speaking!” “You areThou art mad,” replied the pastor; but he went himself to the cowshedbyre to see what was there. He had barely stepped inside whenHardly, however had he set his foot inside when Thumbling again cried, “Don’t send in any more hay! Don’t send in any more hay!Bring me no more fodder, bring me no more fodder.” Then the pastor himself was alarmed, and thought that an evil spirit had gone into the cow, and ordered her to be killed. She was killed, but the stomach, in which Thumbling was, was thrown on the dung heapmidden. Thumbling struggled to get out; at last he managed to make a little roomThumbling had great difficulty in working his way; however, he succeeded so far as to get some room, but just as he was going to push his head outthrust his head out, a new misfortune occurred. A hungry wolf ran upthither, and swallowed the whole stomach at one gulp. Thumbling did not lose courage. “Perhaps,” thought he, “the wolf will listen to what I have got to say,” and he called to him from inside the wolf’s stomachfrom out of his stomach, “Dear wolf, I know of a magnificent feast for you.”

“Where can I find it?Where is it to be had?” said the wolf.

“In such and such a house; youthou must creep into it through the kitchen drainkitchen-sinkExplanation: Here the opening is the drain leading into the kitchen, not a modern sink basin., and willwilt find cakes, and bacon, and sausages, and as much of them as you canthou canst eat,” and he described to him exactly his father’s house. The wolf did not need to be told twiceThe wolf did not require to be told this twice, squeezed himself in at night through the drainsink, and ate to his heart’s content in the room where the food was storedin the larder. When he had eaten his fill, he wanted to go out again, but he had become so big that he could not go out by the same way. Thumbling had counted on thishad reckoned on this, and now began to make a violent noise in the wolf’s body, and raged and screamed as loudly as he could. “Will youWilt thou be quiet,” said the wolf, “you’ll wake everyone upthou wilt waken up the people!” “Eh, what,” replied the little fellow, “you havethou hast eaten yourthy fill, and I’m going to have some fun tooI will make merry likewise,” and began once more to scream with all his strength. At last his father and mother were woken by the noisewere aroused by it, and ran to the room and looked in through the opening in the door. When they saw that a wolf was inside, they ran away, and the husband fetched his axe, and histhe wife a scythe, a long curved blade for cutting grassthe scythe. “Stay behind,” said the man, when they entered the room. “When I strike himhave given him a blowExplanation: The father still plans to kill the wolf, but the graphic instruction to cut its body to pieces is omitted., if he is not killed, you by it, thou must help me finish himcut him down and hew his body to pieces.” Then Thumbling heard his parents’ voices and cried, “Dear father, I am here; I am in the wolf’s body.” Said the father, full of joy, “Thank God, our dear child has found us again,” and told his wife to putbade the woman take away her scythe, so that she would not hurt Thumbling with itthat Thumbling might not be hurt with it. After that he raised his arm, and struck the wolf on the head so hard that he fell down deadstruck the wolf such a blow on his head that he fell down dead, and then they opened the wolf’s bodygot knivesExplanation: Opening the wolf remains necessary to rescue Thumbling; the list of cutting tools is omitted. and pulledscissors and cut his body open and drew the little fellow outforth. “Ah,” said the father, “we have been so worried about youwhat sorrow we have gone through for thy sake.” “Yes father, I have travelled a long wayI have gone about the world a great deal. Thank heaven, I breathe fresh air again!” “Where have youhast thou been, then?” “Ah, father, I have been in a mouse’s hole, in a cow’s stomach, and then in a wolf’s; now I will stay with you.” “And we will not sell youthee again, no, not for all the riches in the world,” said his parents, and they embraced and kissed their dear Thumbling. They gave him food and drinkThey gave him to eat and to drink, and had some new clothes made for him, for his old ones had been ruined on the journeyhis own had been spoiled on his journey.