Long, long ago, when good King Arthur ruled in Britain, there lived a
magician named Merlin. He could change himself into anything he chose,
and one day when he had changed himself into a beggar he stopped at a
plowman’s cottage to ask for food.
“Come in, poor fellow,” cried the plowman, “there’s always a bite for
another.” And the plowman’s wife set on the table a bowl of milk and a
platter heaped with sweet brown bread. Merlin was greatly pleased with
the good people’s kindness to him.
Now, by and by he noticed that although everything in the cottage was
neat and comfortable, something was troubling these kind people. So he
asked them what it was.
“Ah,” cried the poor woman, with tears in her eyes, “we have no little
son. If I only had a little son, I should be the happiest woman in the
world, even if he were no bigger than my husband’s thumb.”
Well, Merlin said nothing, and when he had rested he went on his way.
But he did not forget the kind people’s sorrow. As soon as he could,
he paid a visit to the queen of the fairies, and told her about it and
begged her to grant the woman’s wish. Sure enough, after a time the
plowman’s wife had a little son, and lo and behold! he was not a bit
bigger than her husband’s thumb. While his mother was admiring him, the
queen of the fairies came in at the window. She kissed the child and
called him Tom Thumb. She sent for some of the fairies to dress him, and
she herself told what he should wear.
So the fairies came and dressed the little man according to the queen’s
directions:
“An oak leaf hat he had for a crown;
His shirt of web by spiders spun;
With jacket wove of thistle down;
His trousers were of feathers done.
His stockings, of apple-rind, they tie
With eyelash from his mother’s eye;
His shoes were made of mouse’s skin,
Tann’d with the downy hair within.”
So it was that Tom Thumb, the fairy mannikin, came into the world; and,
wonderful to tell, he never grew any bigger than his father’s thumb.