23 Facts About Thumbelina

Thumbelina is about a tiny girl and her adventures with marriage-minded toads, moles, and cockchafers.

Thumbelina's successfully avoids their intentions before falling in love with a flower-fairy prince just her size.

Thumbelina is chiefly Andersen's invention, though he did take inspiration from tales of miniature people such as "Tom Thumb".

Thumbelina was published as one of a series of seven fairy tales in 1835 which were not well received by the Danish critics who disliked their informal style and their lack of morals.

Thumbelina's is finally given shelter by an old field mouse and tends her dwelling in gratitude.

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Thumbelina sees a swallow who is injured while visiting a mole, a neighbor of the field mouse.

Thumbelina's meets the swallow one night and finds out what happened to him.

Thumbelina's 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 field mouse keeps pushing Thumbelina into the marriage, insisting the mole is a good match for her.

Thumbelina's receives a pair of wings to accompany her husband on his travels from flower to flower, and a new name, Maia.

Fairy tale and folklorists Iona and Peter Opie have proposed the tale as a "distant tribute" to Andersen's confidante, Henriette Wulff, the small, frail, hunchbacked daughter of the Danish translator of Shakespeare who loved Andersen as Thumbelina loves the swallow; however, no written evidence exists to support the theory.

One critic however acknowledged "Thumbelina" to be "the most delightful fairy tale you could wish for".

Thumbelina's widely published volumes of Andersen's tales appeared in 1864 and 1866.

Fairy tale researchers and folklorists Iona and Peter Opie, "Thumbelina" is an adventure story from the feminine point of view with its moral being people are happiest with their own kind.

Thumbelina's detects parallels between Andersen's tale and the Greek myth of Demeter and her daughter, Persephone, and, notwithstanding the pagan associations and allusions in the tale, notes that "Thumbelina" repeatedly refers to Christ's suffering and resurrection, and the Christian concept of salvation.

Andersen biographer Jackie Wullschlager indicates that "Thumbelina" was the first of Andersen's tales to dramatize the sufferings of one who is different, and, as a result of being different, becomes the object of mockery.

In "Thumbelina", Andersen suggests the toad, the beetle, and the mole are Thumbelina's inferiors and should remain in their places rather than wanting their superior.

Thumbelina made a brief appearance in the 2004 DreamWorks animated film Shrek 2, where she is shown walking with Tom Thumb.

Thumbelina's meets Makena, the daughter of a wealthy couple, who became the Twillerbees' only hope for saving their home .

In 2015, a modernized version of Thumbelina appears in the Disney Junior series, Goldie and Bear.

Goldie and Bear try to save her, but soon see that Thumbelina is resourceful, agile, and can lift several times her own weight.

Thumbelina's saves herself from the river and even rescues the kids when they fall in trying to save her.

In Hans Christian Andersen, Hans creates a finger puppet he calls "Thumbelina" to impress a child outside his jail cell where sings a song about her.