Story of the Foreign Fairy Chapter 5

Once upon a time there was a woman who wanted very much to have a tiny child. But she didn't know where to get it. So she went to consult a witch. She said to the witch:

"I want a little baby so bad! Can you tell me where I can get one?"

"Hey! It's easy!" said the witch. "Take this grain of barley. It's not the kind that grows in country folk's fields, nor is it the kind that chickens eat. Bury it in a flowerpot. Soon you'll be You can see what you want to see."

"Thank you," the woman said. She gave the witch three silver coins. So she came home and planted the barley grain. Soon after, a beautiful big red flower grew. It looks very much like a tulip, but its leaves are tightly packed together as if it is still a bud.

"This is a beautiful flower," said the woman, K!ssing the beautiful yellow and red petals. However, while she was K!ssing, the flowers suddenly crackled and opened. People can now see that this is a real tulip. But in the center of the flower, on the green pistil, sits a petite girl. She looks white, tender and cute. She was not half as long as her thumb, so people called her Thumbelina.

Thumbelina's cradle was a beautiful shining walnut shell, her cushions were petals of blue violets, and her quilt was petals of roses. This is where she sleeps at night. But during the day she was playing at the table. On this table the woman placed a plate, and on it a circle of flowers, with their branches immersed in the water. There are huge tulip petals floating on the water. Thumbelina could sit on the petals and paddle from one side of the plate to the other using her two white pony tails. This is so beautiful! She could also sing, and she sang so softly and sweetly that no one had ever heard her sing before.

One night, while she was sleeping in her beautiful bed, an ugly toad jumped in through the window, for one of the panes was broken. This toad is ugly, big, and slimy. She jumped all the way to the table. Thumbelina was sleeping on the table under the bright red rose petals.

"This girl will make a pretty wife for my son," said the toad. So she grabbed the walnut shell in which Thumbelina was sleeping, and jumped out of the window with it on her back, and jumped into the garden.

There is a wide stream flowing in the garden. But its banks are low and moist. Here lived the toad and her son. oops! He and his mother were almost cast in the same mold, and they were also extremely ugly. "Gege! Gege! Gua! Gua! Gua!" This was all he could say when he saw the beautiful little girl in the walnut shell.

"Don't speak so loudly, or you'll wake her up," said the old toad. "She could escape from us because she was as light as a swan's feather! We had to put her on a broad leaf of a water lily in the stream. Since she was so small and light, the leaf was fine for her. It's an island. She can't escape there. In the meantime, we can repair the good house under the mud and you two can live there. "

There are many green water lilies with wide leaves growing in the creek. They seem to be floating on the water. The leaf floating farthest away is also the largest leaf. The old toad swam up to it and placed the shell on top of it with Thumbelina sleeping inside.

The poor little girl woke up very early in the morning. When she saw where she was now, she couldn't help crying sadly, because the broad green leaves were surrounded by water, and there was no way she could get back to the land.

The old toad sat in the mud and decorated the room with rushes and yellow water lilies. There was a new wife living in it, so of course it should be neatly arranged. Then she and her ugly son swam towards the leaf holding Thumbelina. They wanted to move her beautiful bed away and put it in the bridal chamber before she came. The old toad bowed deeply to her in the water and said: "This is my son; he is your future husband. You two will live happily in the mud."

"Ge! Ge! Gua! Gua! Gua!" This was the only thing the young master could say.

They carried the beautiful little bed and swam away in the water. Thumbelina sat alone on the green leaves and couldn't help crying, because she didn't like living with a nasty toad, and she didn't like having that ugly young man as her husband. Some small fish swimming in the water had seen the toad and heard what she said. So they all stretched out their heads to take a look at this little girl. As soon as they saw her, they thought she was very beautiful, so they were very dissatisfied. They felt that it was not okay for such a person to marry an ugly toad! Such a thing must not be allowed to happen! They gathered together in the water around the stem holding the green leaf, and the little girl lived on it. They bit off the stem of the leaf with their teeth, causing the leaf to flow away along the water, carrying Thumbelina with it. It flowed very far, to a place that the toad could not reach at all.

Thumbelina has traveled to many places. When the birds that lived in some bushes saw her, they sang: "What a beautiful little girl!"
 
The leaves carried her drifting farther and farther; finally Thumbelina drifted to a foreign country.

A very cute white butterfly kept flying around her, and finally landed on a leaf, because it liked Thumbelina so much; and she was also very happy, because the toad could no longer find her. At the same time, the area she was flowing through was so beautiful. The sun shining on the water was like the brightest gold. She took off her belt, tied one end to the butterfly, and tied the other end tightly to the leaf. The leaf quickly carried Thumbelina away on the water, because she was standing on top of the leaf.

At this time a big scarab flew over. He saw her. He immediately grabbed her slender waist with his claws and flew with her to the tree. But the green leaf continued to swim along the stream, and the butterfly also swam with it, because it was tied to the leaf and could not fly away.

Gosh! How frightened poor Thumbelina must have been when the scarab flew away into the woods with her! But she was even more sad about the beautiful white butterfly. She had tied him so tightly to the leaf that if he couldn't get out he would starve to death. But the scarab paid no attention to this situation. He sat with her on the largest green leaf on the tree, took out the honey from the flowers for her to eat, and said how beautiful she was, even though she was not at all. Like a scarab beetle. Soon all the scarabs living in the woods came to visit. They looked at Thumbelina. The scarab ladies shrugged their tentacles and said:

"Hey, she only has two legs! That's ugly."

"She doesn't even have tentacles!" they said.

"Her waist is too thin! She looks exactly like a human being. How ugly she is!" all the female beetles said in unison.

But Thumbelina is indeed very beautiful. Even the scarab beetle who kidnapped her couldn't help but think so. But when everyone said she was ugly, he finally had no choice but to believe it, and he didn't want her anymore! She can go anywhere now. They flew down from the tree with her and placed her on a daisy. She cried very sadly there, because she was so ugly that not even the scarab beetle wanted her. But she is still the most beautiful person imaginable, so delicate, so bright, like the purest rose petals.

All summer long poor Thumbelina lived alone in the great wood. She made herself a little bed of grass leaves, and hung it together under the great burdock leaves, so that the rain would not fall on her. She took honey from the flowers for food, and her drink was the dew that condensed on the leaves every morning. Summer and autumn passed just like that. Now, the cold and long winter is coming. The birds that sang sweet songs to her have now flown away. The trees and flowers withered. The big burdock leaf she had been living under was rolled up, leaving only a withered yellow stem. She felt very cold. Because her clothes are torn and her body is so thin and slender, poor Thumbelina! She would freeze to death. The snow also began to fall, and every snowflake that fell on her was like someone hitting us with a shovelful of snow, because we were tall and she was only an inch long. She had no choice but to wrap herself in a dry leaf, but it didn't warm her and she shivered with the cold.

Near the woods where she came now, there was a large wheat field; but the wheat in the field had already been harvested. Only a few bare wheat stubbles were left on the frozen ground. To her, walking among them was like walking through a vast forest. ah! She was shivering with cold, so violently! Finally she came to a field mouse's door. This is a small hole under a wheat stubble tree. The field mice live there, warm and comfortable. She had a whole room full of wheat, and she had a beautiful kitchen and dining room. Poor Thumbelina stood in the door, like a poor girl begging for food. She asked for a grain of barley to be given to her as she had not eaten anything for two days.

"You poor little thing," said the field mouse, for she was a good-hearted old field mouse, "come into my warm house and have something to eat with me."

Because she likes Thumbelina very much now, she said: "You can live with me and spend this winter, but you have to make my room clean and tidy, and tell me some stories at the same time, because I just like it." Listen to the story."

Thumbelina agreed to everything the kind old field mouse asked for. She was very happy living there.

"We're going to have a visitor soon," said the Field Mouse. "This neighbor of mine often gets up to see me once every star. He lives much more comfortably than I do. He has a large room and he wears a very beautiful black velvet robe. As long as you can get him to be your husband, then You won't have enough of it in your life. But he can't see. You have to tell him some of the most beautiful stories you know."

Thumbelina had no interest in this matter. She does not want to marry her neighbor because he is a mole. He came to visit wearing a black velvet robe. The field mouse said how he was rich and knowledgeable, and his home was 20 times bigger than the field mouse's; he had very profound knowledge, but he didn't like the sun and beautiful flowers; and he also liked to talk about these things. Bad words, because he himself had never seen them.

Thumbelina had to sing a song for him. She sang "Scarab, fly away!" ” and sang “The Priest Goes to the Prairie” again. Because her voice was so beautiful, the Mole couldn't help but fall in love with her. But he didn't show it because he was a very cautious person.

Recently, he dug a long tunnel from his own house to theirs. He invited the Field Mouse and Thumbelina to take a walk in this tunnel, and they could come whenever they wished. But he warned them not to be afraid of a dead bird lying in the tunnel. He is a complete bird, with wings and a beak. There can be no doubt that he died not long ago, at the beginning of winter.
 
The place where he is buried was dug through by moles and became a tunnel. The Mole carries a kindling match in his mouth that glows in the dark. He walked in front, lighting the long, dark tunnel for them. When they came to the place where the dead bird lay, the Mole pressed his great nose against the ceiling, and pushed the earth upward, until a great hole was made. The sun shines in through this hole. In the center of the ground lay a dead swallow, its beautiful wings pressed tightly against its body, its lower legs and head retracted into its feathers: the poor bird had undoubtedly frozen to death. This made Thumbelina very sad, for she loved all birds very much. Indeed, they sang beautiful songs to her and murmured words to her all summer long. But the Mole pushed with his short legs and said: "He can sing no more now! What a pity it is to be born a little bird! Thank God my children will not be Like this. A bird like this can do nothing but chirp, and it will starve to death in the winter!"

"Yes, you are a smart man and have a point," said the field mouse. "When winter comes, what use are these 'chirping' songs to a sparrow? His only option is starvation and cold. But I guess this is what everyone calls a great thing!"

Thumbelina said not a word. But when the two of them turned their backs to the swallow, she bent down, gently brushed aside the tuft of feathers covering his head a few times, and at the same time gently touched his closed eyes. received a K!ss.

"Perhaps he was the one who sang such beautiful songs to me in the summer," she thought. "I don't know how much joy he gave me, this dear, beautiful bird!"

The Mole now closed up the hole through which the sunlight came; and he accompanied the two ladies home. But that night Thumbelina could not sleep for a while. She got up and wove straw into a large, beautiful blanket. She took it to the dead swallow and covered him all over. She also wrapped some soft cotton she found in the field mouse's room around the swallow's body, so that he could sleep warm on the cold ground.

"Goodbye, you beautiful little bird!" she said. "Goodbye! In the summer, when all the trees turn green and the sun shines warmly on us, you sing a beautiful song and I want to thank you for it!" So she put her head here on the bird's chest. She immediately became frightened, because something seemed to be beating inside his body, which was the heart of a bird. The bird was not dead, he was just lying there unconscious from the cold. Now that he was warm, he was alive again.

In autumn, all swallows fly to warm countries. However, if one of them falls behind, he will encounter the cold, and he will fall down as if dead; he can only lie on the ground where he fell, and let the frozen snowflakes cover his whole body. .

Thumbelina was really shaking, for she was so frightened; the bird was so huge compared with her, who was only an inch tall. But she took courage. She wrapped the cotton tightly around the poor bird; and at the same time she took the mint leaves with which she used to make a quilt, and covered the bird's head.

The next night, she secretly went to see him again. He is alive now, but still a little comatose. He could only open his eyes slightly for a moment and look at Thumbelina. Thumbelina stood holding a kindling in her hand, for she had no other lamp.

"I thank you, my lovely little baby!" the swallow, who was not in good health, said to her, "I am so comfortable and warm now! I will soon regain my strength and fly again, in the warm sunshine. "

"Ah," she said. "It's so cold outside. The snowflakes are flying and there's ice everywhere. Please sleep in your warm bed. I can take care of you."

She filled the petals with water and gave it to the swallows. After the swallow drank the water, he told her that one of his wings had been scratched on a thorny bush, so he could not fly as fast as the other swallows; they were traveling far away at that time. Go to a distant and warm country. Finally he fell to the ground, but he couldn't remember the rest now. He had no idea how he got to this place.

The swallows lived here all winter. Thumbelina treated him well and liked him very much, but the Mole and the Field Mouse knew nothing of it, for they did not like the poor, lonely swallow.

When spring comes and the sun warms the earth, the swallow bids farewell to Thumbelina. She opened the hole that the mole had dug in the top. The sun shone very brightly on them. So the Swallow asked Thumbelina if she would go away with him: she could ride on his back, and they could fly far away into the green woods. But Thumbelina knew that if she left like this, the field mouse would feel pain.

"No, I can't leave!" said Thumbelina.

"Then farewell, farewell, you kind and lovely girl!" said the swallow. So he flew towards the sun. Thumbelina looked at him from behind, with tears in her eyes, for she loved the poor swallow so much.

"Dili! Dili!" the swallow sang and flew towards a green forest.

Thumbelina felt very sad. The field mouse wouldn't let her go out into the warm sunlight. In the field on the field mouse's roof, the wheat has grown very tall. To this poor little girl, the wheat was like a dense forest, because she was only an inch tall after all.

"You must sew your new wedding dress this summer!" the field mouse said to her, because her annoying neighbor, the mole in a black velvet gown, had proposed to her. "You have to prepare sweaters and cotton clothes. When you become Mrs. Mole, you should have clothes for sitting and clothes for sleeping."
 
Thumbelina now had to spin her spinning wheel. The Mole hired four spiders to spin and weave for her day and night. The Mole visited her once every evening. The Mole kept grunting: When the summer is about to end, the sun will not be so hot; now the sun bakes the ground as hard as stone. Yes, when the summer is over, he will marry Thumbelina. But she was not happy at all, for she really did not like the annoying Mole. Every morning when the sun rose, every evening when the sun set, she would sneak to the door. When the wind blew the wheat ears to both sides so that she could see the blue sky, she imagined that it was very bright and beautiful outside, so she fervently hoped to see her dear swallow again. But the swallow never came back. Undoubtedly, he had flown far away into the beautiful, green woods. It is autumn now, and all Thumbelina's wedding clothes are ready.

"Your wedding is in four weeks," the field mouse said to her. But Thumbelina began to cry and said that she would not marry the disgusting Mole.

"Nonsense!" said the field mouse, "don't be stubborn; otherwise, I will bite you with my white teeth! He is a very lovely man, you must marry him! Even the queen is not as good as him. Velvet robes! His kitchen and pantry are full of stuff. You should thank God for such a husband!"

Now the wedding is going to take place. The Mole has come, and he himself comes to greet Thumbelina. She had to live with him, deep underground, never being able to come into the warm light of the sun, because he didn't like the sun. The poor little girl was very sad now that she had to bid farewell to that glorious sun which, while she lived with the field mice, she had been allowed to look at from the door.

"Farewell, you bright sun!" she said, stretching out her hands in the air, and taking a few steps outside the field mouse's house, for now the barley had been harvested and there was only the dry stubble. "Goodbye, goodbye!" she repeated, hugging a small red flower that was still blooming with her arms. "If you see that little swallow, I ask you to say hello to him on my behalf."

"Dili! Dili!" At this moment, a voice suddenly shouted above her head. She looked up and saw that it was the little swallow that had just flown by. When he saw Thumbelina, he seemed very happy. She told him how she would not like that ugly Mole to be her husband; and she said she would have to live so deep underground that the sun would never shine in. When she thought of this, she couldn't help crying.

"The cold winter is coming now," said the little swallow. "I want to fly far, to warm countries. Will you come with me? You can ride on my back! You tie yourself tightly with your belt. Then we can Leave this ugly mole and fly away from his dark house far, far away over the mountains to a warm country: where the sun is more beautiful than here, where there is always only summer, where there is always sunshine Fly with me, sweet little Thumbelina; you saved my life when I froze in that miserable hole!"

"Yes, I will go with you!" said Thumbelina. She sat on the bird's back, resting her feet on his outstretched wings, and fastened her girdle to one of his strongest feathers. In this way, the swallows flew into the air, flew over the forest, flew over the sea, and flew high over the mountains covered with snow all year round. In this cold high altitude, Thumbelina shivered with cold. But now she slipped into the bird's warm feathers. She just stuck her little head out and admired the beautiful scenery below her.

Finally they came to a warm country. The sun there shines much brighter than here, and the sky seems to be twice as high. The most beautiful green and blue grapes grow in the ditches and on the fences. Lemons and oranges hang everywhere in the woods. The air was filled with the scent of myrtle and musk; and many very cute children were running up and down the road, playing with some large, brightly colored butterflies. But the swallows flew farther and farther, and the scenery became more and more beautiful. Beside a blue lake there was a clump of the loveliest green trees, and inside them there was an ancient palace made of white marble. Grape vines cluster around many tall columns. There are many swallows' nests on their tops. One of these nests is the home of the swallow that now flies with Thumbelina.

"This is my house," said the swallow. "However, there are many beautiful flowers growing down there. You can choose one of them; I can put you on it. Then you can live as comfortably as you want."

"That's great," she said, clapping her little hands.

There is a huge marble column there. It had fallen to the ground and fell into three pieces. But in the midst of them grew a most beautiful white flower. The swallow flew down with Thumbelina and placed her on one of its broad petals. How amazed the little girl felt! In the center of that flower sits a little man! He was so white and transparent, as if he were made of glass. He wore the most gorgeous gold crown on his head, and had a pair of shining wings on his shoulders, but he was no taller than Thumbelina. He is the angel among flowers. (Note: Angel is an angel. In Western literature and art, the image of an angel is usually a child with a pair of wings.) There is such a little man or woman living in every flower. But this one is the king of them all.

"My God! How beautiful he is!" whispered Thumbelina to the Swallow. The little prince was very afraid of the swallow, because he was so small and tender, and to him the swallow was simply a huge bird. But when he saw Thumbelina, he immediately became happy: she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life. So he took the golden crown from his head and placed it on her head. He asked her name and asked her if she would be his wife so that she could be the queen of all flowers. This prince is truly worthy of being called her husband. He is completely different from the toad's son and the mole wearing a big black velvet robe! So she said to the prince who amused her: "I do." Then a young lady or a man came out of each flower. They are so cute, just looking at them makes you happy. They each gave Thumbelina a gift, but the best gift of all was a pair of wings taken from a large white fly. They attached the wings to Thumbelina's back, so that she could now fly among the flowers. At this time everyone became happy. The swallow sat in his nest above and sang his best song to them. Then in his heart, he felt a little sad, because he liked Thumbelina so much, and he really hoped to never leave her.
 
"You should stop calling Thumbelina now!" said the flowery Angel to her. "This is an ugly name, and you are so beautiful! From now on, we will call you Maya (Note: In Greek mythology, Maja is the giant god Atlas who towers over the sky. ) The eldest and the most beautiful of the seven daughters born to Pleione. Together with their parents, these seven sisters represent the nine brightest stars in Taurus. Appears in May (harvest time) and hides in October (second sowing time)."

"Goodbye! Goodbye!" said the little swallow. He flew away from this warm country again and flew back to Denmark, far, far away. In Denmark, he built a small nest in the window of a man who could write fairy tales. He sang to the man: "Dili! Didi!" It was from him that we heard the whole story.