yellow fairy tale book

Chapter 40 Thumbelina (1)

Once upon a time there was a woman who wanted very much to have a small child, but she didn't know how to get it.One day, she went to ask an old witch: "I really want to have a small child, can you tell me how to get it?"

"Oh! What a coincidence, we just have one ready here!" said the witch. "Take this barley. Tell you, it's not barley that grows in a farmer's field or feeds chickens! You plant it in a pot and watch miracles happen."

"Oh! Thank you so much!" said the woman, and gave the witch a shilling as a reward.Then she ran home excitedly and planted the barley in the pot.Soon a large and beautiful flower bloomed out of it, like a tulip, but its petals were still tightly closed, as if it were only a bud.

"What a beautiful flower!" the woman exclaimed, and happily kissed the red and yellow petals; but at this time the flowers actually bloomed.From the outside, it looks no different from other tulips, but there is a neat and beautiful little girl sitting in the center of the flower.She was barely half the height of a thumb, so everyone called her Thumbelina.The beautiful walnut shell was Thumbelina's cradle, the blue violet petals were her cotton mattress, and a rose leaf became her quilt.At night she rested in her cradle, but during the day she filled the table and played.On the table, the woman also placed a bowl and surrounded it with a garland of flowers, the stems of which were immersed in water.A giant tulip petal floats in the middle of the bowl.Thumbelina sometimes sat on the petals, sometimes swam from one side of the bowl to the other, and sometimes paddled a canoe made of white horsehair with sculls.It all looked wonderful!Thumbelina sang softly and sweetly, and people had never heard such a beautiful singing voice.

One night, Thumbelina was lying on her pretty little bed, covered with leaves of red roses.An old toad crawled in through the crack in the windowpane.The ugly, clumsy and dirty toad jumped on the table where Thumbelina was.

"She is just right to be my beautiful daughter-in-law," the old toad thought, and loaded Thumbelina and the walnut shells on his back, and crawled out of the crack into the garden again.

In the garden there was a broad brook with smooth and wet banks.Here lived the old toad and his son.ah!The little toad looks just like the old toad: ugly and dirty.When it saw the beautiful Thumbelina in the walnut shell, it only knew how to yell "quack, quack, quack".

"Don't shout so loudly, or you'll wake her up," the old toad reminded it. "She might get away even now. Since she's so light, let's send her to the big water lily in the creek. That's quite an island to her so small and light." .So she can't escape, and we can decorate the welcome room at home."

The creek outside is full of water lilies, and the large green leaves look as if they are swimming in the water.

The widest one is also the furthest from the shore.The old toad swam to the big water lily with Thumbelina's walnut bed on his back.

The next morning, Thumbelina got up very early.Seeing herself trapped on a giant water lily in the middle of the water, unable to get to the shore, she wept bitterly.

Meanwhile at home deep in the brook, Old Toad was busy adorning the room with yellowing rushes and marigolds for the welcome of his future daughter-in-law.Then it led the ugly little toad and swam to the water lily where Thumbelina slept.Old Toad wished to have Thumbelina's walnut bed there before she married into his own.In the water, it bowed to Thumbelina in front of it, and said, "This is my son. You must marry him, and then live with us in a luxurious villa deep in the creek."

"Crack, croak, croak!" The little toad knew how to scream.So they pushed the small walnut bed to swim home.Poor Thumbelina sat alone on the big water-lily and sobbed sadly, because she would never live with the dirty old toad, much less marry the ugly little toad.The little fish swimming in the water saw clearly what the old toad did and said, so they all came out to see the little girl.When they found Thumbelina so pretty, they were very sad--living with little Toad would have made her heartbroken.no!Make sure to stop this from happening!So they circled around the stem of the water lily under Thumbelina, bit by bit biting it off.As a result, the water lily followed the current and carried Thumbelina to a place where the old toad would never find it.

Thumbelina sat on a water lily and traveled through several towns.The little bird resting in the undergrowth saw her and sang: "What a beautiful little girl!" The water lilies drifted farther and farther away, and Thumbelina left her hometown like this.

A beautiful white butterfly fluttered back and forth above her head and settled on a water lily.Thumbelina made the butterfly happy, and she was also very happy when she thought that the two nasty toads would never catch her again.It was beautiful where she passed--the sun hitting the water and making it look like the brightest silver, and the silver waves shone.She untied her belt, tied one end to the butterfly, and tied the other end to the water lily, so that the water lily could float faster with the butterfly!

At this time a huge scarab flew by.It saw Thumbelina, put its paws around her slender waist, and flew to a tree.And the water lily is holding the butterfly, and continues to float down the stream.Butterflies couldn't break free because they were tied to water lilies.Oh my god!Poor Thumbelina was terrified when she saw herself being caught by the beetle and flying up the tree!And she was even more sorry for the beautiful white butterfly, because she tied it up so tightly that if it couldn't break free it would starve to death.But the scarab didn't have such worries—it happily sat on the leaves and brought her sweet nectar.It tells Thumbelina that although she does not look like a scarab, she is really very beautiful.Before long, other beetles who lived in the same tree came to say hello.They looked at Thumbelina carefully and said, "Why does she only have two legs? She is so pitiful!"

"She has no antennae yet!" cried another beetle.

"She's so ugly!" cried all the other female Scarabs--Thumbelina was actually very pretty!

Scarab knew that Thumbelina was beautiful when she first saw her.But when all the female beetles were shouting that she was ugly, it actually started to think so too.So it didn't want to control her anymore, and went wherever she thought.The beetle flew down the tree with Thumbelina, and put her on a wild chrysanthemum.Thumbelina remembered that the scarab didn't care about her because of her ugliness, so she sat on the flower and cried sadly.But she was the most beautiful person you could imagine, tender and small, like a lovely rose petal.

Poor Thumbelina had to live alone in this big wood all summer.She wove herself a bed out of blades of grass, and hung it under a clover tree so that it would not get caught in the rain.When she was hungry, she picked some nectar to fill her stomach; when she was thirsty, she drank the dew on the leaves every morning.In this way, summer and autumn passed in a hurry, but the long and cold winter followed.All the birds that had sung for her were gone, and the green trees were shedding their leaves, and the wild flowers were withering.And the alfalfa that Thumbelina used to shelter from the wind and rain was also curled up. Its flowers had already fallen, leaving only dry branches.Thumbelina felt cold and unbearable, because her clothes had long been worn out.Poor Thumbelina!She was about to freeze to death.

There is a very wide corn field outside the big forest, but the corn has been harvested long ago, and there are only bare dry corn stalks left in the frozen field.Thumbelina strolls among them, as if exploring in the forest.Suddenly, under a corn stalk, she found the gate of the field mouse's house.The voles live in a warm home, not only hoarding a room full of corn, but also preparing a luxurious kitchen and dining room for themselves.So poor Thumbelina went straight to the door, and told the field mouse that she had had nothing to eat for two whole days, and begged for a little barley.

"Poor little guy!" said the good old field mouse sympathetically. "Come to my warm house! Come and eat something with me!"

The old field mouse liked Thumbelina, so it said: "I would like you to live with me all winter. But remember that you must clean the house clean. And you have to tell me stories, I love you very much." Listen to the story."

Thumbelina did everything very well as good old Field Mouse told her to do. "I'm going to have a guest soon," said the field mouse. "My neighbors come to see me once a week. It's in much better condition than mine. It has a spacious house and fancy evening dresses. If you can marry it, you will have a good life. But it's blind , so you tell it the best stories, too."

Of course Thumbelina wouldn't bother to think about it, since it's just a mole.Sure enough, it didn't take long for him to visit the old field mouse in a black evening dress.

"It is not only rich but also versatile." The old field mouse introduced to her. "His house is twenty times bigger than mine, and he has a great deal of knowledge. But he can't stand the sun and the pretty flowers, and often degrades them—in fact he's never seen them."

Thumbelina had to sing for the guests.So she sang, "Ladybug, ladybug, come home!" and she sang so sweetly that the visiting Mole fell in love with her at once.But he didn't say it -- he was a cautious mole.Soon it dug a passage connecting its own house with the old field mouse's house.Then he told the old field mouse and Thumbelina to walk freely in the passage.But he hoped they wouldn't be afraid of the dead bird in the passage—a bird with a beak and feathers.It must have just died, now buried in the tunnel it dug.The Mole took a piece of burning rotten wood in its mouth, and it walked ahead, lighting up the long dark passage.They came to the dead bird, and the Mole bumped its great snout against the top, making a hole for the sun to shine through.The bird lying in the middle of the road was a dead swallow, with its beautiful wings clinging to its body, and its head and claws hidden in its feathers.The poor bird must have just been frozen to death.Thumbelina liked all the swallows, so she was very sad.Their beautiful singing accompanied her all summer long.The Mole, however, kicked the swallow with his bowed leg, and said, "The fellow can't twitter any more. What a miserable fate to be a bird! Thank goodness none of my children are swallows—they usually die of starvation at home." winter."

"Yes, that makes sense," replied the old field mouse. "In winter, what else can a swallow do but twitter? It will starve to death or freeze to death. I have to say that is the best home for it." gone."

(End of this chapter)