Hop o’ My Thumb (Fairy tale)
"Hop o’ My Thumb" is a fairy tale that revolves around a woodcutter family with seven sons, particularly focusing on the youngest, known as Little Thumb, who is notably small and underestimated. Despite being blamed for the family's troubles, Little Thumb possesses remarkable intelligence and resourcefulness. When his parents decide to abandon their children in the woods due to their inability to provide for them, Little Thumb cleverly retrieves white pebbles to mark their way back home. However, after a second abandonment, he faces challenges when birds consume the breadcrumb trail he leaves.
The tale features an ogre who intends to eat the children, but Little Thumb outsmarts him by using his wits to escape and ultimately acquire the ogre's riches. This narrative highlights themes of cleverness, family loyalty, and the transformation of the underestimated into the heroic. First published by Charles Perrault in 1697, "Hop o’ My Thumb" is significant in the fairy tale genre, often categorized under the theme of a small hero defeating a larger adversary, which resonates across various cultures and stories. The tale also plays with the symbolism of the number seven, representing completeness and often featured in folklore.
Hop o’ My Thumb (Fairy tale)
Author: Charles Perrault
Time Period: 1501 CE–1700 CE
Country or Culture: France
Genre: Fairy Tale
PLOT SUMMARY
A husband and wife who work as woodcutters have seven sons, and this number of children burdens them greatly. What worries them the most is that their youngest son is abnormally small, no larger than a thumb, and barely ever speaks. Because of his stature, his parents call him Little Thumb. Although he is always blamed for everything wrong in the house, Little Thumb is secretly far more intelligent than all of his brothers combined.
The parents cannot provide for their children, so the father suggests that they leave them in the woods. Unbeknownst to them, Little Thumb is hiding in the room, listening to them devise the plan. He gets up early and sneaks away to the riverside, where he collects several white pebbles. Shortly after he returns home, the whole family goes into the woods as planned.
When the children are not looking, the parents disappear into the winding bushes, leaving the children alone and lost. The other children begin to cry, but Little Thumb does not. He tells his brothers not to be afraid, for he will lead them home: as the family walked through the woods, he dropped the white pebbles along the way, leaving a trail. The mother and father arrive home to find that the lord of the manor has sent them ten crowns. The mother prepares a feast, and as they eat, the parents lament the fact that they left their children in the woods. The children are outside listening to their mother’s regrets, and after a while, they cry out to her. The mother is relieved they are alive.
Eventually the family spends the ten crowns. Again, the parents decide that the only way to survive is to leave their children in the woods. Little Thumb overhears their scheme again and steals a piece of bread with which to leave a trail of crumbs. The parents bring them into the thickest part of the woods and leave them. When Little Thumb tries to locate the trail of crumbs, he finds that birds have eaten them.
Night comes, and the children walk until they reach a house. A woman answers the door, and Little Thumb tells her about their dilemma. She warns them that her husband is an ogre who eats children, but she agrees to hide them for a while. When the ogre comes home, the children hide under the bed. The ogre, however, smells the children and snatches them up. He decides he will eat them the following day and orders his wife to put them to bed.
The ogre has seven daughters, who sleep with golden crowns on their heads. After the ogre has fallen asleep, Little Thumb takes the seven bonnets worn by his brothers and switches them with the gold crowns worn by the daughters. The ogre wakes around midnight and groggily gropes around in the dark until he feels the bonnets. He then cuts the throats of each of his daughters. He does not discover his mistake until the morning, by which time Little Thumb and his brothers have escaped. The ogre quickly puts on his magical boots that allow him to travel at great speed and pursues the boys.
He eventually becomes exhausted and falls asleep on top of a rock under which the boys happen to be hiding. Little Thumb quietly steals the ogre’s boots, which magically shrink to his size; he quickly returns to the ogre’s house, explaining to the ogre’s wife that a gang of thieves overpowered the ogre and will kill him if they are not given riches. The frightened woman gives Little Thumb all of their riches, and he returns to his parents’ house, where he is received with great joy.
In other versions of the fairy tale, Little Thumb uses the magical boots to become a messenger for the king. He is paid a great sum of money to carry orders to the king’s army. After saving up his wealth, Little Thumb returns home.
SIGNIFICANCE
“Hop o’ My Thumb” first appeared in French author Charles Perrault’s 1697 collection of fairy tales, Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Stories or fairy tales from past times). At the time, fairy tales were popular with those who frequented Parisian salons. Perrault is considered to be the originator of the modern fairy-tale genre, and many of his stories remain popular.
The theme of a small boy defeating an ogre can be found frequently in fairy tales, and it has its own indexing number, 327B, in the Aarne-Thompson classification system, which is used by folklorists to index recurring themes and narrative structures in folklore and fairy tales. Other stories of this type include the French story “The Bee and the Orange Tree” (written by Madame Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy) and the Norwegian story “Boots and the Troll.” The tale of Hansel and Gretel is often placed in this type, since, much like an ogre, the witch in that story intends to eat the children. Child abandonment is also a recurring theme found in 327B stories.
Perrault helped bring the word ogre into wide use. The word is French in origin, and although there are many different theories, scholars believe it may be derived from the name of the Greek river god Oiagros (or Oeagrus). Perrault uses ogres in several of his stories and even introduces an ogress, or female ogre, in his version of the story of Sleeping Beauty.
As the main character, Little Thumb is smarter than his brothers and the ogre, and as the story progresses, he grows even wiser. In the beginning, it takes him all night to think of the plan to make a trail with pebbles, but near the end, he is quickly able to think of how to save himself and his brothers while also acquiring all of the ogre’s riches. He saves his family from poverty and death through his wits. Through the story he transforms from the scolded, disliked youngest son into the hero.
The number seven appears frequently in fairy tales, perhaps most notably in the fairy tale of Snow White and the seven dwarfs. In “Hop o’ My Thumb,” the woodcutters and the ogre each have seven children, and the ogre’s magic boots are known as the “boots of seven leagues.” Scholars believe the number symbolizes completeness, being derived from the seven days of Judeo-Christian creation as well as the seven planets of Greek antiquity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Vintage, 2010. Print.
Crossen, Kendra, and Marie-Louise von Franz. The Interpretation of Fairy Tales. Boston: Shambhala, 1996. Print.
Perrault, Charles. The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault. Trans. Neil Philip and Nicoletta Simborowski. New York: Clarion, 1993. Print.
Roberts, Anna. “In the Dark Wood: Abuse Themes in Common Fairy Tales.” Northern Lights. Northern State U, 2003. Web. 31 July 2012.
Tatar, Maria M. Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1992. Print.