Long before, a woman used to live in a cottage. She was very soft hearted. She used to spend her day gardening flowers and singing to the birds. She used to enjoy the wonderful change in colors in the sky and humming of the bees around the flowers all day long. She has only wish unfulfilled was to have a child to share all the joys with.
The woman had a problem that she couldn’t bear a child by herself. With this sorrow in her heart she stopped singing for the birds and kept forgetting to garden the plants. An aged woman passed by her gate one day. The aged woman was a witch. While the witch was passing by the woman’s gate she sees her crying. The witch asked the woman the reason behind her grief. The woman hopefully asked to the witch to genuinely help her to bear a child. Then the witch took out the tiny bag out of her cloak. The woman wondered about tiny bag so the witch explained to her. The bag contains a bulb of tulip. She should plant that bulb and water it and her dream will come true. The woman did as she was told.
Soon she watered the bulb to see a tulip came out of it. She looked very happy to see this and fascinated with the way it smelled. She then caresses the tulip and kissed it. Petals of that tulip abruptly opened and a child appeared in it. She was small, pretty and thumb sized. So the woman named her child Thumbelina. The woman loved the small girl she then picked her and put her in the wall-nut shell bed for nap. In a tiny voice the child said-“mother I am not sleepy”.
The woman was overjoyed to hear her child calling her mother. She started singing lullaby to help Thumbelina sleep and went to another room to wipe her tears. Thumbelina also started singing. Her voice was so mesmerizing that an ugly toad hoped on to the window pane and took Thumbelina with her. The ugly toad wanted Thumbelina to marry her son. So she kept Thumbelina on a lily pad and hoped in the pond to take her son.
Thumbelina cried her heart’s out muttering “I miss my mother and my home”. In no time a fish came across her and saw her crying. Fish helped her to escape the toad. Thumbelina kept running from toad and she went quite far. She became very tired. She thought of making bed with the grass leaves. She was struggling to make it as she was very small. Meanwhile a butterfly came and helped her to make a comfy bed out of the grasses.
The weather was getting terribly bad. She needed the house to stay safe from the weather. She began to search for the small house. To her surprise she found a small house in the bottom of the tree. It was of a field mouse. Field mouse gladly welcomed her and they started living together. They sing together, cooked together and danced together. One day, a sparrow came to the mouse to ask for shelter. He couldn’t fly as his wings were hurt. Sparrow was very amazed to see the tiny human. Sparrow asked her. Is she was a fairy. But she didn’t know who fairies were.
Eventually, the sparrow’s wings got better and he took Thumbelina to the fairy’s world. There was a flower, a small handsome little boy stepped out of it. Have had wings in his back and crown on his head. He was prince of the fairies. Thumbelina was very happy, for she longed to be with another person of her own size. She found the prince of the fairies very charming and handsome. He placed a tiny golden crown on Thumbelina’s head while two smaller fairies fastened delicate wings on her back. “I will marry you, Prince,” said Thumbelina happily, “but you must come with me and live in my mother’s garden. I miss her terribly!” The prince eagerly agreed to move with Thumbelina to her mother’s garden. The sparrow showed the tiny prince and princess the way to the woman’s garden. The woman was so surprised to find not only her precious little daughter singing to her from her windowsill, but also a new little son-in-law! They all lived happily ever after.