Daumesdick

Thumbling

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A poor farmer and his wife wish for a child, even one no bigger than a thumb, and get just that: Daumesdick, tiny but clever. Sitting in the horse's ear he drives his father's cart into the forest, and two strangers who see it buy him to show him for money; he lets his father sell him, then slips into a mouse hole and laughs at them. Spending the night in a snail shell he overhears two thieves planning to rob the rich pastor; he offers to help, but inside the pastor's room he shouts so loudly that the cook wakes and the thieves run. Asleep in the barn, he is gathered up with the hay and eaten by the cow; from its stomach he cries „Bringt mir kein frisches Futter mehr!“, the pastor thinks an evil spirit is in the cow and has it killed, and a hungry wolf swallows the stomach. Daumesdick talks the wolf into raiding his father's pantry, where the wolf eats until he cannot get out again; then Daumesdick makes a great noise, his parents come with axe and scythe, kill the wolf and cut their son free. They will never sell him again for all the riches in the world, and they give him food, drink and new clothes.

Retold from Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, Band 1, 7. Auflage (Ausgabe letzter Hand, 1857), KHM 37 by Brüder Grimm (public domain).