Grimm's Household Tales. Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm. Translated by Margaret Hunt. 1884.
There was once a poor peasant who sat in the evening by the hearth and poked the fire, and his wife sat and span. Then said he, "How sad it is that we have no children! With us all is so quiet, 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 should be quite satisfied, and we would still love it with all our hearts." Now it so happened that the woman fell ill, and after seven months gave birth to a child, that was perfect in all its limbs, but no longer than a thumb. Then said they, "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 did not let it want for food, but the child did not grow taller, but remained as it had been at the first, nevertheless it looked sensibly out of its eyes, and soon showed itself to be a wise and nimble creature, for everything it did turned out well.
One day the peasant was getting ready to go into the forest to cut wood, when he said as if to himself, "How I wish that there was any one who would bring the cart to me!"
"Oh father," cried Thumbling, "I will soon bring the cart, rely on that; it shall be in the forest at the appointed time." The man smiled and said, "How can that be done, thou art far too small to lead the horse by the reins?"
"That's of no consequence, father, if 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, "for once we will try it."
When the time came, the mother harnessed the horse, and placed Thumbling in its ear, and then the little creature cried, "Gee up, gee up!"
Then it went quite properly as if with its master, and the cart went the right way into the forest. 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 a 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, "Seest 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 quite merrily on a straw, but when the two strange men saw him, they did not know what to say for astonishment. Then one of them took the other aside and said, "Hark, the little fellow would make our fortune if we exhibited him in a large town, for money. We will buy him." They went to the peasant and said, "Sell us the little man. He 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 of the bargain, had crept up the folds of his father's coat, placed himself on his shoulder, and whispered in his ear, "Father do give me away, I will soon come back again." Then the father parted with him to the two men for a handsome bit of money. "Where wilt thou sit?" they said to him. "Oh just set me on the rim of your hat, and then I can walk backwards and forwards and look at the country, and still not fall down." They did as he wished, and when Thumbling had 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 by the wayside, and he leapt and crept about a little between the sods, and then he suddenly slipped into a mouse-hole which he had sought out. "Good evening, gentlemen, just go home without me," he cried to them, and mocked them. They ran thither and stuck their sticks into the mouse-hole, but it was all lost labour. Thumbling crept still farther in, and as it soon became quite dark, they were forced to go home with their vexation and their empty purses.
When Thumbling saw that they were gone, he crept back out of the subterranean passage. "It is so dangerous to walk on the ground in the dark," said he; "how easily a neck or a leg is broken!" Fortunately he knocked against an empty snail-shell. "Thank God!" said he. "In 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 shall we contrive to get hold of the rich pastor's silver and gold?"
"I could tell thee that," cried Thumbling, interrupting them. "What was that?" said one of the thieves in fright, "I heard some one speaking." They stood still listening, and Thumbling spoke again, and said, "Take me with you, and I'll help you."
"But where art thou?"
"Just look on the ground, and observe from whence my voice comes," he replied. There the thieves at length found him, and lifted him up. "Thou little imp, how wilt thou help us?" they said. "A great deal," said he, "I will creep into the pastor's room through the iron bars, and will reach out to you whatever you want to have."
"Come then," they said, "and we will see what thou 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 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 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 reach 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 were behind them, but as the maid could not see anything, she went to strike a light. When she came to the place with it, Thumbling, unperceived, betook himself to the granary, 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 he had other things to go through. Truly, there is much affliction and misery in this world! When day dawned, the maid arose from her bed to feed the cows. 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, 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 have I got into the fulling mill?" but he soon discovered where he was. Then it was necessary to be careful not to let himself go between the teeth and be dismembered, but he was nevertheless forced to slip down into the stomach with the hay. "In this little room the windows are forgotten," said he, "and no sun shines in, neither will a candle be brought." His 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. Then at length in his anguish, he cried as loud as he could, "Bring me no more fodder, bring me no more fodder." The maid was just milking the cow, 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 ran in great haste to her master, and said, "Oh heavens, pastor, the cow has been speaking!"
"Thou art mad," replied the pastor; but he went himself to the byre to see what was there. Hardly, however had he set his foot inside when Thumbling again cried, "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 midden. Thumbling had great difficulty in working his way; however, he succeeded so far as to get some room, but just as he was going to thrust his head out, a new misfortune occurred. A hungry wolf ran thither, 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 out of his stomach, "Dear wolf, I know of a magnificent feast for you."
"Where is it to be had?" said the wolf.
"In such and such a house; thou must creep into it through the kitchen-sink, and wilt find cakes, and bacon, and sausages, and as much of them as thou canst eat," and he described to him exactly his father's house. The wolf did not require to be told this twice, squeezed himself in at night through the sink, and ate to his heart's content in 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 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. "Wilt thou be quiet," said the wolf, "thou wilt waken up the people!"
"Eh, what," replied the little fellow, "thou hast eaten thy fill, and I will make merry likewise," and began once more to scream with all his strength. At last his father and mother were 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 the wife the scythe. "Stay behind," said the man, when they entered the room. "When I have given him a blow, if he is not killed by it, thou must cut 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 bade the woman take away her scythe, that Thumbling might not be hurt with it. After that he raised his arm, and struck the wolf such a blow on his head that he fell down dead, and then they got knives and scissors and cut his body open and drew the little fellow forth. "Ah," said the father, "what sorrow we have gone through for thy sake."
"Yes father, I have gone about the world a great deal. Thank heaven, I breathe fresh air again!"
"Where hast 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 thee again, no, not for all the riches in the world," said his parents, and they embraced and kissed their dear Thumbling. They gave him to eat and to drink, and had some new clothes made for him, for his own had been spoiled on his journey.
Joseph Jacobs
A woman was once stringing beans in her kitchen, and she thought to herself, "Oh, why have I not got a little baby boy; if I had only one as big as one of these beans or as big as my thumb I should be content. How I would love it, and dress it, and talk to it."
As she was speaking thus to herself and finishing off the beans, suddenly she thought they all turned into little baby boys, jumping and writhing about. She was so startled and afraid that she shook out her apron, in which they all lay, into a big bowl of water with which she was going to wash the beans. And then she hid her head in her apron so as not to see what happened; and after a while she looked out from under her apron and looked at the bowl, and there were all the little boys floating and drowned, except one little boy at the top. And she took pity on him and drew him out of the bowl; then she showed him to her husband when he came home.
"We have always wanted a boy," she said to him, "even if it were not bigger than our thumbs, and here we have him."
So they took him and dressed him up in a little doll's dress and made much of him; and he learnt to talk, but he never grew any bigger than their thumbs; and so they called him Thumbkin.
One day the man had to go down into the field, and he said to his wife, "My dear, I am going to get ready the horse and cart, and then I am going down to the field to reap, and just at eleven o'clock I want you to drive the cart down for me."
"Isn't that just like a man?" said his wife. "I suppose you'll want your dinner at twelve, and how do you expect me to get it ready if I have to drive your horse and cart down to the field and then have to trudge back on my ten toes and get your dinner ready? What do you think I am made of?"
"Well, it has to be done," said the man, "even if dinner has to be late."
So they commenced quarrelling, till Thumbkin called out, "Leave it to me, Father; leave it to me."
"Why, what can you do?" asked the man.
"Well," said Thumbkin, "if mother will only put me in Dobbin's ear, I can guide him down to the field as well as she could."
At first they laughed, but then they thought they would try. So the man went off to the field, and at eleven o'clock the woman put Thumbkin into the horse's right ear; and he immediately called out, "Gee!"
And the horse began to move. And as it went on towards the field Thumbkin kept calling out, "Right! Left! Left! Right!" and so on till they got near the field.
Now it happened that two men were coming that way, and they saw a horse and cart coming towards them, with nobody on it, and yet the horse was picking his way and turning the corners just as if somebody was guiding him. So they followed the horse and cart till they got to the field, when they saw the man take Thumbkin out of the horse's ear and stroke him and thank him. They looked at one another and said, "That lad is a wonder; if we could exhibit him we would make our fortunes."
So the men went up to the man and said, "Will you sell that lad?"
But the man said, "No, not for a fortune; he's the light of our life."
But Thumbkin, who was seated on the man's shoulder, whispered to him, "Sell me and I'll soon get back."
So the man after a time agreed to sell Thumbkin for a great deal of money, and the men took him away with them.
"How shall we carry him?" said they.
But Thumbkin called out, "Put me on the rim of your hat and I shall be able to see the country."
And that is what they did.
After a time as it got dusk the men sat down by the wayside to eat their supper. And the man took off his hat and put it on the ground, when Thumbkin jumped off and hid himself in the crevice of a tree.
When they had finished their supper the men looked about to find Thumbkin, but he was not there. And after a while they had to give up the search and go away without him.
When they had gone three robbers came and sat down near the tree where Thumbkin was and began to speak of their plans to rob the Squire's house.
"The only way," said one, "would be to break down the door of the pantry which they always lock at night."
"But," said another, "that'll make so much noise it will wake up the whole house."
"Then one of us," said the first robber, "will have to creep in through the window and unlock the door."
"But the window is too small," said the third robber; "none of us could get through it."
"But I can," called out Thumbkin.
"What is that? Who was that?" called out the robbers, who commenced thinking of running away. And then Thumbkin called out again, "Do not be afraid, I'll not hurt you, and I can help you get into the Squire's pantry."
Then he came out of the hole in the tree, and the robbers were surprised to see how small he was. So they took him up with them to the Squire's house, and when they got there they lifted him up and put him through the window and told him to look out for the silver.
"I've found it! I've found it!" he called out at the top of his shrill voice.
"Not so loud; not so loud," said they.
"What shall I hand out first, the spoons or the ladles?" he shouted out again.
But this time the butler heard him and came down with his blunderbuss, and the robbers ran off. So when the butler opened the door Thumbkin crept out and went to the stable, and laid down to sleep in a nice cozy bed of hay in the manger.
But in the morning the cows came into the stable, and one of them walked up to the manger. And what do you think she did? She swallowed the hay with little Thumbkin in it, and took him right down into her tummy.
Shortly afterwards the cows were driven out to the milking place, and the milkmaid commenced to milk the cow which had swallowed Thumbkin. And when he heard the milk rattling into the pail he called out, "Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"
The milkmaid was so startled to hear a voice coming from the cow that she upset the milking pail and rushed to her master, and said, "The cow's bewitched! The cow's bewitched! She's talking through her tummy."
The farmer came and looked at the cow, and when he heard Thumbkin speaking out of her tummy he thought the milkmaid was quite right, and gave orders for the cow to be slaughtered.
And when she was cut up by the butcher he didn't want the paunch—that is the stomach—so he threw it out into the yard. And a wolf coming by swallowed the paunch and Thumbkin with it.
When he found himself again in the wolf's stomach he called out as before, "Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"
But the wolf said to him, "What'll you do for me if I let you out?"
"I know a place where you can get as many chickens as you like, and if you let me out I'll show you the way."
"No, no, my fine master," said the wolf; "you can tell me where it is, and if I find you are right then I'll let you out."
So Thumbkin told him a way to his father's farm, and guided him to a hole in the larder just big enough for the wolf to get through. When he got through there were two fine fat ducks and a noble goose hung up ready for the Sunday dinner. So Mr. Wolf set to work and ate the ducks and the goose while Thumbkin kept calling out, "Don't want any duck or geese. Let me out! Let me out!"
And when the wolf would not he called out, "Father! Father! Mother! Mother!"
And his father and mother heard him, and they came rushing towards the larder. Then the wolf tried to get through the hole he had come through before, but he had eaten so much that he stuck there, and the farmer and his wife came up and killed him.
Then they began to cut the wolf open and Thumbkin called out, "Be careful! Be careful! I'm here, and you'll cut me up." And he had to dodge the knife as it was coming through the wolf.
But at last the paunch of the wolf was slit open, and Thumbkin jumped out and went to his mother. And she cleansed him and dressed him in new clothes, and they sat down to supper as happy as could be.
I have followed, for the most part, Bolte's reconstruction, which practically consists of a combination of Grimm, 37 and 45. But in combining the two I have found it necessary to omit sections D and E of Bolte's formula which form the beginning of Grimm, 45, "Thumbkin as Journeyman."
The notion of a baby the size of a doll might be regarded as "universally human"; even the Greeks knew of manikins no bigger than their thumbs and weighing not more than an obolus (Athenæus, xii., 77); there is an epigram of the same subject in the Greek Anthology, ii., 350. But the particular adventures of Thumbkin are so consistently identical throughout Europe, especially with regard to the adventures in the cow's stomach, that it is impossible to consider the stories as independent. Cosquin, 53, has more difficulty than usual in finding real parallels in the Orient. In England, of course, Thumbkin is known as Tom Thumb (see English Fairy Tales). In the days when mythological explanations of folk-tales were popular, Gaston Paris, in a special monograph ("Petit Poucet," Paris 1875) tried to prove that Tom Thumb was a stellar hero because his French name was given to the smallest star in the Great Bear. But it is more likely that the name came from the tale than the tale from the star.
According to Gaston Paris, the chief variants known to him were Teutonic and Slav. Those of the Roumanians, Albanians, and Greeks were derived from the Slavs. He concludes that the French form must have been borrowed from the Germans, and declares that it is not found in Italy or Spain, but Cosquin, ii., gives Basque and Catalan variants, as well as a Portuguese one, and Crane gives a Tuscan variant, 242, with other occurrences in Italy in note 3, p. 372. This only shows the danger of deciding questions of origin on an imperfect induction.
The opening is not found in Grimm; I have taken it from Andrews; for which an excellent parallel is given in Crane, lxxvii., "Little Chick-pea." A similar beginning occurs in Hahn, 56, "Pepper-corn."
— Joseph Jacobs, 1890