Tom Thumb

   This is the English version of an international humorous *fairytale in which a woman's wish to have a son 'even if he is no bigger than my husband's thumb' is literally granted - in this case, by *Merlin. Tom receives magic gifts from his godmother the Fairy Queen, but his tiny size leads to many mishaps, as when he falls into a pudding, is carried off by a raven, is swallowed by a grazing cow, a fish, a giant, and so on. The earliest surviving version appeared in 1621 and is probably by a popular pamphleteer, Richard Johnson (1573-?1659); however, earlier references to the hero by name show that he was already known in the 1570s. Johnson's humour is mildly coarse; Tom makes his exit from the cow via a cowpat, and causes such 'rumbling and tumbling' in the giant's guts that the latter vomits him 'at least three miles into the sea'. Later versions were made more 'suitable' for children; some end with Tom dying heroically in battle with a spider.

   His name was used by early publishers of children's verses, for instance Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book (1744) and The Famous Tommy Thumb's Little Story-Book (c.1760); at this period 'Tommy Thumb songs' was the usual English term for *nursery rhymes.

   The full text of the 1621 pamphlet, with a commentary, is in Opie and Opie, 1974: 30-3; it is also edited by C. F. Buhler, The History of Tom Thumbe (1965).