At the last minute, Thumbelina escapes the situation by fleeing to a far land with the swallow. In a sunny field of flowers, Thumbelina meets a tiny flower-fairy prince just her size and to her liking; they eventually wed. She receives a pair of wings to accompany her husband on his travels from flower to flower, and a new name, Maia. In the end, the swallow is heartbroken once Thumbelina marries the flower-fairy prince, and flies off eventually arriving at a small house. There, he tells Thumbelina's story to a man who is implied to be Andersen himself, who chronicles the story in a book. [1] Adaptations [ edit ] Animation [ edit ]

It wasn’t easy t o run away, but she was kind-hearted and helped everyone, so everyone helped her. She helped a swallow to heal her wing, so they became inseparable. While they were traveling together, Thumbelina met a nice and kind boy and fell in love with him. There was once a woman who wished very much to have a little child, but she could not obtain her wish. At last she went to a fairy, and said, "I should so very much like to have a little child; can you tell me where I can find one?" The leaf furthest away was the largest, and to this the old toad swam with Thumbelina in her walnut-shell.The birds who had sung in the trees fl ew away. The leaves withered and dropped and Thumbelina shivered with cold. Snow began to fall. Every snowflake that fell felt like a shovelful on tiny Thumbelina. She wrapped herself in a dry leaf but that did not warmher. Tweet, tweet!" Sounded in her ear all at once. She looked up. There was the swallow flying past! As soon as he saw Thumbelina, he was very glad. She told him how unwilling she was to marry the ugly mole, as then she had to live underground where the sun never shone, and she could not help bursting into tears.

The mole now stopped up the hole through which the daylight shone, and then accompanied the lady home. But during the night Tiny could not sleep; so she got out of bed and wove a large, beautiful carpet of hay; then she carried it to the dead bird, and spread it over him; with some down from the flowers which she had found in the field-mouse's room. It was as soft as wool, and she spread some of it on each side of the bird, so that he might lie warmly in the cold earth. Thumbelina did not say anything, but when the other two had passed on she bent down to the bird, brushed aside the feathers from his head, and kissed his closed eyes gently. "Perhaps it was he that sang to me so prettily in the summer," she thought. "How much pleasure he did give me, dear little bird!"

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Then she brought the swallow some water in a flower-leaf, and after he had drank, he told her that he had wounded one of his wings in a thorn-bush, and could not fly as fast as the others, who were soon far away on their journey to warm countries. Then at last he had fallen to the earth, and could remember no more, nor how he came to be where she had found him. Thumbelina was very contented. At night she slept under a rose petal in a polished walnut shell. By day she rowed herself across a bowl of water the woman had put out for her. Tweet, tweet," sounded over her head suddenly. She looked up, and there was the swallow himself flying close by. As soon as he spied Tiny, he was delighted; and then she told him how unwilling she felt to marry the ugly mole, and to live always beneath the earth, and never to see the bright sun any more. And as she told him she wept. Thumbelina awoke at the sound of hops and croaks and immediately began to sob at the thought of her mother all alone without the company of being sung to sleep.

Thumbelina tries to protect herself from the elements. When winter comes, she is in desperate straits. She is finally given shelter by an old field mouse and tends her dwelling in gratitude. Thumbelina sees a swallow who is injured while visiting a mole, a neighbor of the field mouse. She meets the swallow one night and finds out what happened to him. She keeps on visiting the swallow during midnight without telling the field mouse and tries to help him gain strength and she frequently spends time with him singing songs and telling him stories and listening to his stories in the winter until spring arrives. The swallow, after becoming healthy, promises that he would come to that spot again and flies away saying goodbye to Thumbelina. Near the wood in which she had been living lay a corn-field, but the corn had been cut a long time; nothing remained but the bare dry stubble standing up out of the frozen ground. It was to her like struggling through a large wood. Oh! how she shivered with the cold. So the wedding was to take place. The mole had already come to fetch Thumbelina; she was to live with him deep under the ground, and never to come out into the warm sunshine, for he did not like it. The poor little child was very sorrowful; she had now to say farewell to the beautiful sun, which at least she had been allowed by the field-mouse to see from the threshold of the door. DVD Verdict Review - Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre: The Complete Collection". dvdverdict.com. Archived from the original on 2011-06-17.

When autumn arrived, Tiny had her outfit quite ready; and the field-mouse said to her, "In four weeks the wedding must take place."