THUMBELINA

There was once a woman who wanted a small child but didn’t know where to get one. So she went to a witch for help.

“A little child?” said the witch, “That’s easy. Here’s a magic seed. Plant it in a flower pot and see what happens!”

The woman thanked the witch, paid her with a piece of silver, and went home to plant the magic seed. As soon as it touched the soil, the seed grew into a tulip, whose flower opened with a pop. In the middle of the flower sat a tiny girl.

“Why, the pretty little thing is hardly as big as my thumb!” cried the woman. “I am going to call her Thumbelina.”

The woman made Thumbelina a bed from a walnut shell. Instead of going out, Thumbelina played on the kitchen table. Her favorite game was sailing across a bowl of water in a boat made from a tulip leaf. As she sailed, she sang in a high, sweet voice.

One night, an old toad got in through an open window and hopped down into the kitchen table. “Just the wife for my son!” the toad declared when it saw Thumbelina sleeping in her tiny bed. The toad picked up the walnut shell and hopped out through the window into the garden. At the bottom of the garden, there was a stream with muddy banks, and that was where the old toad lived with her son. He was even damper and uglier than his mother. When he saw the pretty little girl asleep in the walnut shell, all he could say was, “Ribbik! Ribbik!”. “Not so load!” whispered the old toad. “if you wake her up, she’ll run away. We’ll put her on a water-lily leaf in the middle of the stream so she won’t be able to escape. Then we can clear out the best room for the wedding.”

In the morning, when she woke up, Thumbelina was startled to find herself on a big green leaf in the middle of a stream.

Taken from: www.storytotell.com