داستان سامبلینا (لینا بند انگشتی )

There was once a woman who wanted very much to have a child. So one day she went to a Fairy and said to her: 'I should so much like to have a little child; can you tell me where I can get one?'
'Here is a barley-corn for you’, said the Fairy. ‘Put it in a flower-pot, and then you will see something happen.'
The woman went home and planted the barley-corn; there grew out of it a large and beautiful flower, but the petals were tightly closed as if it were still only a bud.
'What a beautiful flower!' exclaimed the woman, and she kissed the red and yellow petals; but as she kissed them the flower burst open and in the middle of the blossom sat a little girl, quite tiny, trim, and pretty. She was scarcely half a thumb in height; so they called her Thumbelina.But one night, when she was lying in her pretty little bed which was an elegant walnut-shell, an ugly old toad crept in through a broken pane in the window. She hopped on to the table where Thumbelina lay asleep.
'This would make a beautiful wife for my son,' said the toad, taking up the walnut-shell, with Thumbelina inside, and hopping with it through the window into the garden.
There flowed a great wide stream, with slippery and marshy banks; here the toad lived with her son. Ugh! how ugly and clammy he was, just like his mother! 'Croak, croak, croak!' was all he could say when he saw the pretty little girl in the walnut- shell.

The tiny Thumbelina woke up very early in the morning, and when she saw where she was she began to cry bitterly; for she was placed on a great green leaf in the middle of the water, and she could not get to the land.
The old toad was decorating her room, to make it very grand for her new daughter-in-law; then she swam out with her ugly son to the leaf where Thumbelina lay. The old toad said: 'Here is my son; you shall marry him, and live in great magnificence down under the marsh.'
Then they took the neat little cradle and swam away with it; but Thumbelina sat alone on the great green leaf and wept, for she did not want to live with the clammy toad, or marry her ugly son.

The little fishes swimming about under the water had seen the toad quite plainly, and heard what she had said; so they put up their heads to see the little girl. When they saw her, they thought her so pretty that they were very sorry she should go down with the ugly toad to live. No; that must not happen. They assembled in the water round the green stalk which supported the leaf on which she was sitting, and nibbled the stem in two. Away floated the leaf down the stream, bearing Thumbelina far beyond the reach of the toad.
On she sailed past several towns, and the little birds sitting in the bushes saw her, and sang, 'What a pretty little girl!' The leaf floated farther and farther away; thus Thumbelina left her native land.A great cockchafer came flying past; he caught sight of Thumbelina, and in a moment had put his arms round her slender waist, and had flown off with her to a tree. Oh, dear! how terrified poor little Thumbelina was when the cockchafer flew off with her to the tree. Later on, all the other cockchafers who lived in the same tree came to pay calls; they examined Thumbelina closely. 'How ugly she is!' said all the lady chafers--and yet Thumbelina was really very pretty.
When the cockchafer heard all the ladies saying she was ugly, he began to think so too, and would not keep her; she might go wherever she liked. So he flew down from the tree with her and put her on a daisy.

The whole summer poor little Thumbelina lived alone in the great wood. The summer and autumn passed, but then came winter-the long, cold winter. She was terribly cold. Poor little Thumbelina! she would surely be frozen to death.
She came across the door of a field-mouse, who had a little hole under a corn-stalk. Thumbelina went up to the door and begged for a little piece of barley.
'Poor little creature!' said the field-mouse, come into my warm room and have some dinner with me.'
As Thumbelina pleased her, she said: 'As far as I am concerned you may spend the winter with me; but you must keep my room clean and tidy, and tell me stories, for I like that very much.'

And Thumbelina did all that the kind old field-mouse asked, and did it remarkably well too.
'Now I am expecting a visitor,' said the field-mouse; 'my neighbour comes to call on me once a week. He is very wealthy, has great, big rooms, and wears a fine black-velvet coat. If you could only marry him, you would be well provided for. But he is blind. You must tell him all the prettiest stories you know.'
But Thumbelina did not trouble her head about him, for he was only a mole. He came and paid them a visit in his black-velvet coat. He liked Thumbelina very much and expressed his desire to marry her.

A short time before he had dug a long passage through the ground from his own house to that of his neighbour; in this he gave the field-mouse and Thumbelina permission to walk as often as they liked. But he begged them not to be afraid of the dead bird that lay in the passage. Thumbelina was very sorry, for she was very fond of all little birds.Thumbelina bent down to the bird, and kissed his closed eyes gently.
Later, she plaited a great big blanket and spread it over the dead bird, so that the poor little thing should lie warmly buried. Then she laid her head against the bird's heart. But the bird was not dead: he had been frozen, but now that she had warmed him, he was coming to life again. Thumbelina was so amazed to see the bird was alive!
'Thank you, pretty little child!' said the swallow to her. 'I am so beautifully warm! Soon I shall regain my strength, and then I shall be able to fly out again into the warm sunshine.'

When the spring came, and the sun warmed the earth again, the swallow said farewell to Thumbelina and flew away.
'Now you are to be a bride this very autumn, Thumbelina!' said the field-mouse, 'for our neighbour has proposed for you! What a piece of fortune for a poor child like you!
But she was not at all pleased about it, for she did not like the stupid mole.
Spring and summer passed and the wedding-day arrived. The mole had come to fetch Thumbelina to live with him deep down under the ground, never to come out into the warm sun again, for that was what he didn't like.
'Tweet, tweet!' sounded in her ear all at once. She looked up. There was the swallow flying past!
'The cold winter is coming now,' said the swallow. 'I must fly away to warmer lands: will you come with me? You can sit on my back, and we will fly over the mountains, to the warm countries where the sun shines more brightly than here, where it is always summer, and there are always beautiful flowers.’
'Yes, I will go with you,' said Thumbelina, and got on the swallow's back. Up he flew into the air, over woods and seas, over the great mountains where the snow is always lying.

At last they came to warm lands; there the sun was brighter and the sky seemed twice as high. The swallow flew down with Thumbelina, and set her upon one flower. But there, to her astonishment, she found a tiny little man sitting in the middle of the flower; he had the prettiest golden crown on his head, and the most beautiful wings on his shoulders; he himself was no bigger than Thumbelina. He was the spirit of the flower. In each blossom there dwelt a tiny man or woman; but this one was the Prince.
'How handsome he is!' whispered Thumbelina to the swallow.
When the Prince saw Thumbelina, he was delighted, for she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He asked her name, and then invited her to his castle. The Prince fell in love with her, so he asked her if she would be his wife, and Queen over all the flowers. This certainly was a very different sort of husband to the son of a toad, or the mole; so she said, “Yes,” to the handsome prince. She was gifted then with a beautiful pair of wings so she too could fly from flower to flower.
'You shall not be called Thumbelina!' said the Prince to her. We will call you May Blossom.'
So she married the Prince and became the Queen of the Flowers.