A pretty little girl, the size of a thumb, was born to a woman who named her Thumbelina. The woman put her in a bed made of a walnut shell on the windowsill. But a frog saw Thumbelina and kidnapped her to marry her. His mother put her in the middle of a lake on a lily-leaf. Two fish nibbled at the stalk and the leaf floated away. A butterfly pulled Thumbelina using her ribbons to safety in a meadow. Thumbelina hid, frightened of beetles and spiders, till she found a mole’s burrow! The mole wanted to marry her so that she might look after him. Thumbelina saw an injured sparrow in the mole’s burrow and she looked after it till it became ready to fly. She escaped with the sparrow who took her to a garden. In one of the blossoms, she met and married the King of the Flower Fairies, and became the Fairy Queen!
Thumbelina
