One day when Tom went into the fields to drive the cattle with a whip of
barley straw his father had given him, he slipped and rolled into one of
the furrows. A raven flying overhead picked him up and flew with him to
the top of a giant’s castle near the sea, and there left him.
Tom did not know what to do. But this was not the worst of it. He heard
a heavy tread, tramp! tramp! and out strode Grumbo, the giant who owned
the castle. He saw Tom, picked him up and gulped him down in a twinkling,
as if he were a pill. But in a minute he was sorry. For Tom began to kick
and jump about so that the giant could not stand him in his stomach, but
rushed to the castle wall and vomited him into the sea.
Well, the instant Tom struck the water a great fish swallowed him. Soon
a fisherman caught this very fish, took it to market, and there sold it
for King Arthur’s own table. And when the king’s cook cut the fish open,
out stepped Tom, alive and well, and stood on his head for joy to find
himself safe and free again. The astonished cook ran with him to the
king, and Tom so delighted the king and queen and all the knights of the
Round Table with his tricks that the king called him his dwarf, to make
fun for him and the court.
In time the king grew so fond of Tom that he took him everywhere with
him, and even let him creep into his pocket for shelter if it should rain
when they were out together.
So now Tom Thumb was King Arthur’s dwarf and lived at court.