Thumbelina
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This article is about the 1835 fairy tale. For other uses, see Thumbelina (disambiguation)
Thumbelina or Little Tiny is a Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, first published in 1835 as part of the second volume of Eventyr, fortalte for Børn (Fairy-tales, Told for Children). It was originally known as Tommelise or Tommeliden (Tomme means inch in danish).
Andrew Lang retold it in The Olive Fairy Book as "The Strange Adventures of Little Maia."
[edit] Plot synopsis
Once, a woman grew a barleycorn in her garden, so beautiful that when she kissed the petals of the bloom, it burst into a flower and a tiny but beautiful girl emerged. The woman named her Thumbelina, as she was no bigger than the woman's thumb.
The girl's beauty soon attracted the attention of a frog. She believed Thumbelina would make a good bride for her son, so she kidnapped the girl in the middle of the night, and delivered her to her son. The son was immediately enchanted by Thumbelina's beauty, and left her on a lily pad. However, Thumbelina managed to find help. Fish gnawed away the root of the lily pad, and a butterfly offered to pull her to safety with one of Thumbelina's ribbons as a harness. Before she could be freed however, a mayfly grabbed Thumbelina off the lily and took her away, leaving the butterfly to die as he was too fragile to break free of the ribbon.
The mayfly, who was also enchanted by Thumbelina, brought her back to his family, but the female mayflies declared she was ugly, and so they abandoned her as a result. Starving in the cold of winter, the little girl was then found by a field mouse, who took care of her. Because the mouse believed that she was indebted to him, the girl soon found herself engaged to a mole. The wedding would take place in spring, once the last snow thawed.
Unhappy that she must marry the mole, Thumbelina went to the see the flowers one last time, knowing the mole disliked the beauty of the upper world and would confine her to the ground below. A bird flew by and saw Thumbelina's distress, so he offered to take her away to a better world.
She agreed and the bird took her far away to a field of flowers, where he told her to choose a flower to claim as her own. Thumbelina found a flower, but discovered another person present, the prince of fairies. Enchanted by her beauty, he asked to marry her, and the little girl agreed. She was renamed Maia by the prince (as the name Thumbelina is not beautiful enough for a girl like her) and given a pair of wings so she may fly with her new husband.
[edit] Adaptations
- The first film-version of Thumbelina was a black and white production released in 1924, it was directed by Herbert M. Dawley.
- Lotte Reiniger directed a 10-minute short film adaptation of the fairy tale which was released in 1954.
- Thumbelina has also been adapted into film by the Golden Films in 1992. It's the second most popular adaptation of the film, but still quite obscure. Thumbelina (1992) is much brighter, happier and optimistic than Don Bluth's rather dark version.
- The animated Thumbelina, directed by Don Bluth and released in 1994. The movie is alternatively titled Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina although the story deviates from the source story in a number of ways.
- Toei Animation released a feature-length anime version of the story in 1978, titled Sekai Meisaku Dowa: Oyayubi Hime (World's Famous Children's Stories: The Thumb Princess), with character designs by Osamu Tezuka. An English dubbed version was released in the U.S. by Harmony Gold.
- Also in Japan, Enoki Films adapted the story into a 26-episode TV series in 1992 titled Oyayubi Hime Monogatari (The Story of the Thumb Princess).
[edit] External links
