Thumbelina

Infobox Book |
name = Thumbelina
title_orig = Tommelise
translator =


image_caption = Vilhelm Pedersen illustration
author = Hans Christian Andersen
country = Denmark
language = Danish
series =
genre = Fairy tale
published_in = "Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Første Samling. Andet Hefte. 1835."
publication_type =
publisher = C.A. Reitzel
media_type = Print
pub_date = 16 December 1835
english_pub_date = 1846
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"Thumbelina" (Danish: "Tommelise") is a fairy tale by the Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. Like the English folk tale "Tom Thumb" and similar tales, "Thumbelina" tells the story of a tiny human being. "Thumbelina" is one of Andersen's earliest original fairy tales and was first published in 1835. The earliest English translation is dated 1846. The tale has been adapted to various media including animated film. For some, the tale demonstrates Andersen's identification with the social outsider.

Plot

When the story opens, a woman receives a magic seed from a crone. Once planted, a tiny girl emerges from its flower. The woman names the child Thumbelina. One night, Thumbelina is asleep in her walnut-shell cradle and is carried off by a toad. She escapes the toad and drifts on a lily pad until becoming the captive of a beetle. The beetle discards her when his friends reject her company. Thumbelina tries to protect herself from the winter cold. She is finally given shelter by a field mouse and tends the mouse's home in return. The mouse suggests Thumbelina marry her neighbor, a mole. Thumbelina finds the prospect of being married to a mole unattractive and escapes the situation by fleeing to a far land with a swallow she nursed back to health during the winter. In a field of flowers, Thumbelina meets a fairy prince just her size and they wed. Thumbelina receives a pair of wings to accompany her husband on his travels from flower to flower.

Analysis

According to Jackie Wullschlager [Wullshlager, Jackie. "Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller". Knopf, 2001. ISBN 0679455086.] , the tale was inspired by Tom Thumb (and its similar tales) as well as "Meister Flak" by E.T.A. Hoffmann. It was the first of Andersen's tales to "dramatize the sufferings of the outsider who is different and therefore an object of mockery". It was also the first to use an identification or presence of the swallow "the migratory bird whose pattern of life his [Andersen's] own traveling days were coming to resemble".

OthersOpie, Iona and Peter. "The Classic Fairy Tales". Oxford University Press, 1974. ISBN 0-19-211559-6.] have suggested the tale is a possible "distant tribute" to Andersen's confidante, Henriette Wulff, the hunchbacked daughter of the Danish translator of Shakespeare.

Publication

The tale was first published by C.A. Reitzel 16 December 1835 in Copenhagen as part of "Fairy Tales Told for Children. First Collection. Second Booklet. 1835." ("Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Første Samling. Andet Hefte. 1835."). "Thumbelina" ("Tommelise") was the first tale in the booklet which included two other tales: "The Naughty Boy" ("Den uartige Dreng") and "The Traveling Companion" ("Reisekammeraten"). The tale was republished twice during Andersen's lifetime: 18 December 1849 as a part of "Fairy Tales. 1850." ("Eventyr. 1850." ), and again 15 December 1862 as a part of "Fairy Tales and Stories. First Volume. 1862." ("Eventyr og Historier. Første Bind. 1862."). [ [http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/register/info_e.html?vid=10 Hans Christian Andersen Center: Hans Christian Andersen: Thumbelina] Retrieved February 2, 2008]

Early translations

Mary Howitt was the first to translate the tale into English and published it as "Tommelise" in "Wonderful Stories for Children" (1846). However, instead of the opening consultation between the childless woman and the crone/witch as found in Andersen, Howitt had the childless woman rewarded with the magic barleycorn after providing a hungry beggar woman with bread and milk.

Charles Boner also translated the tale in 1846 and gave the heroine the name 'Little Ellie' while Madame de Chatelain, in her 1852 translation, christened the child 'Little Totty'. The editor of "The Child's Own Book" (1853) called the child throughout, 'Little Maja', the name she usually receives at the end of the tale from the fairy prince.

It is likely H.W. Dulcken was the translator responsible for the name, 'Thumbelina'. Dulcken's widely published volumes of Andersen's tales appeared in 1864 and 1866. 'Tomme' means 'inch' in Danish and the tale is sometimes published as "Little Tiny" in English.

Adaptations

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Mors, Denmark.]
*Andrew Lang retold it as "The Strange Adventures of Little Maia" in his eleventh collection of fairy tales, "The Olive Fairy Book", published in 1907.
*The first film version of Thumbelina was a black and white 1924 production directed by Herbert M. Dawley.
*Danny Kaye sang "Thumbelina," a song written by Frank Loesser, in the 1952 musical biopic "Hans Christian Andersen".
*Lotte Reiniger directed a 10-minute short film adaptation, released in 1954.
*"Classics Illustrated Junior", a 1950s American comic book series, published "Thumbelina" as issue #520. [ [http://www.classicscentral.com/titles-jun.htm Complete list of Classics Illustrated Junior titles] ]
*Toei Animation released a feature-length anime version in 1978, titled "Sekai Meisaku Dowa: Oyayubi Hime" ("World's Famous Children's Stories: The Thumb Princess"), with character designs by Osamu Tezuka. Harmony Gold released it in the U.S. with English dubs.
*The family television series "Faerie Tale Theatre" featured a live-action version of "Thumbelina" in 1984, starring Carrie Fisher and William Katt.
*Japan's Enoki Films adapted the story into a 26-episode TV series in 1992 titled ""(おやゆび姫物語).
*In an episode of The New Kidsongs Television Show Thumbelina was mentioned.
*The second most widely-recognized animated adaptation of the story was produced by Diane Eskenazi for Golden Films in 1993. "Thumbelina" featured an original plot without altering the essence of the original Hans Christian Andersen tale and featured a wide variety of classical compositions instead of an original sountrack. The classical pieces included work from Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky among many others.
*"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. It is the only animated film to win, (and first even to be nominated for, Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996 film) was second), a Razzie, which it received for Worst Song.
*The 2002 direct-to-DVD animated movie, "The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina" Thumbelina was voiced by Jennifer Love Hewitt.
*Thumbelina appeared in Shrek 2 as a guest in Princess Fiona and Prince Charming's wedding.
*"Thumbelina" is a song by the band Nightmare of You, from their 2005 self-titled album.
*"Thumbelina" is a song by the band the Pretenders, from their 1984 album titled "Learning to crawl".
*"Sunset (The Death Of Thumbelina)" is a song by the band Current 93, from their 2007 album Black Ships Ate the Sky.

See also

*List of works by Hans Christian Andersen
*Vilhelm Pedersen, first illustrator of Andersen's fairy tales

References

External links

* [http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/Thumbelina_e.html Thumbelina] Jean Hersholt's English translation
* [http://www.adl.dk/adl_pub/vaerker/cv/e_vaerk/e_vaerk.xsql?ff_id=22&id=2243&hist=fmT&nnoc=adl_pub Tommelise] Original Danish text
* [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/thumbelina/index.html Surlalune's Annotated Thumbelina]
* [http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_tiny.html The original text of the fairy tale translated by HP Paull]