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むかしむかし、ひとりぼっちの女の人が、魔法使いにたのみました。
「わたしには子どもがいません。小さくてもかまわないので、かわいい女の子がほしいのです」
すると魔法使いは、種を一粒くれました。
女の人が種をまくと、たちまち芽が出て、つぼみが一つふくらみました。
「まあ、なんてきれいなんでしょう」
女の人が思わずキスをすると、つぼみが開きました。
そしてなんと、そのつぼみの中に、小さな女の子がすわっていたのです。
「はじめまして。あなたの名まえは、親指姫よ」
女の人は、親指姫をたいせつに育てました。
親指姫は、お皿の海で泳ぎます。
葉っぱの舟をこぎながら、きれいな声で歌いました。
夜になると、くるみのからのベッドで眠ります。
おふとんは、花びらでした。
(中略）
南へ南へ何日も飛んで、着いたのは花の国です。
ツバメは花の上に親指姫をおろしました。
「ようこそ、かわいい人」
声にふりかえると、親指姫と同じくらいの男の子が立っていました。
花の国の王子さまです。
「さあ、これをどうぞ」
王子さまは、親指姫の背中に羽をつけてくれました。
それから親指姫は、花の国の王子と結婚しました。
二人は花から花へと飛びまわりながら、しあわせに暮らしました。
(英語版）
Once, a woman grew a barleycorn in her garden, so beautiful that when she kissed the petals of the bloom, it burst into a flower and a tiny but beautiful girl emerged. The woman named her Thumbelina, as she was no bigger than the woman's thumb.
The girl's beauty soon attracted the attention of a frog. She believed Thumbelina would make a good bride for her son, so she kidnapped the girl in the middle of the night, and delivered her to her son. The son was immediately enchanted by Thumbelina's beauty, and left her on a lily pad. However, Thumbelina managed to find help. Fish gnawed away the root of the lily pad, and a butterfly offered to pull her to safety with one of Thumbelina's ribbons as a harness. Before she could be freed however, a mavfly grabbed Thumbelina off the lily and took her away, leaving the butterfly to die as he was too fragile to break free of the ribbon.
The mayfly, who was also enchanted by Thumbelina, brought her back to his family, but the female mayflies declared she was ugly, and so they abandoned her as a result. Starving in the cold of winter, the little girl was then found by a field mouse, who took care of her. Because the mouse believed that she was indebted to him, the girl soon found herself engaged to a mole. The wedding would take place in spring, once the last snow thawed.
Unhappy that she must marry the mole, Thumbelina went to the see the flowers one last time, knowing the mole disliked the beauty of the upper world and would confine her to the ground below. A bird flew by and saw Thumbelina's distress, so he offered to take her away to a better world.
She agreed and the bird took her far away to a field of flowers, where he told her to choose a flower to claim as her own. Thumbelina found a flower, but discovered another person present, the prince of fairies. Enchanted by her beauty, he asked to marry her, and the little girl agreed. She was renamed Maia by the prince (as the name Thumbelina is not beautiful enough for a girl like her) and given a pair of wings so she may fly with her new husband.