Prevod

A tailor had a son who had turned out very small, no bigger than a thumb, and so he was called Thumbling. But he had courage in his heart, and he said to his father, ‘Father, I mean to go out into the world, and go I must.’ ‘Quite right, my son,’ said the old man. He took a long darning needle and, holding it to the candle, fixed a knob of sealing wax to one end. ‘Now you have a sword to take along with you.’ The little tailor wanted one last meal at home, so he hopped into the kitchen to see what his dear mother had cooked for his farewell. The food had just been dished up, and the bowl stood on the hearth. ‘Mother dear, what is there to eat today?’ he asked. ‘See for yourself,’ said his mother. So Thumbling jumped onto the hearth and peered into the bowl. But he stretched his neck too far over it, and the steam rising from the food caught him and carried him up the chimney. For a while he rode about in the air on the steam, until at last he sank back down to earth. Now the little tailor was out in the wide world. He wandered about and took work with a master tailor, but the food was not good enough for him. ‘Mistress, if you don’t give us better food,’ said Thumbling, ‘I shall leave, and tomorrow morning I’ll write on your front door in chalk: Too many potatoes, too little meat—farewell, King Potato, I’m taking to the street.’ ‘What do you want, you grasshopper?’ said the mistress angrily. She seized a rag and tried to strike him, but my little tailor nimbly crept under a thimble, peeped out from beneath it, and stuck his tongue out at her. She lifted the thimble and tried to catch him, but little Thumbling hopped into the rags, and when she scattered them to look for him, he slipped into a crack in the table. ‘Hey, hey, mistress!’ he cried, poking his head up, and whenever she tried to strike him, he jumped down into the drawer. At last, though, she caught him and drove him out of the house.

The little tailor wandered on and came to a great forest, where he met a band of robbers who were planning to steal the king’s treasure. When they saw the little tailor, they thought, ‘A little fellow like that could crawl through a keyhole and serve as our skeleton key.’ ‘Ho there!’ one of them called. ‘You giant Goliath, will you come with us to the treasury? You can slip inside and throw the money out.’ Thumbling considered the matter, and at last said yes and went with them to the treasury. There he examined the door from top to bottom to see whether it had a crack in it. Before long he discovered one wide enough to let him through. He was just about to slip inside when one of the two sentries standing at the door noticed him and said to the other, ‘What an ugly spider crawling there! I’ll stamp on it.’ ‘Leave the poor creature alone,’ said the other. ‘It hasn’t done you any harm.’ So Thumbling made his way safely through the crack into the treasury, opened the window beneath which the robbers were standing, and threw out one thaler after another. While the little tailor was hard at work, he heard the king coming to inspect his treasury and quickly hid himself. The king noticed that a great many silver thalers were missing, but he could not imagine who could have stolen them, since the locks and bolts were in good order and everything seemed secure. So he went away again, saying to the two guards, ‘Keep a sharp watch. Someone is after the money.’ When Thumbling began his work again, they heard the money moving and clinking inside: clink, clank, clink, clank. They rushed in to catch the thief. But the little tailor, who heard them coming, was quicker still: he jumped into a corner and pulled a thaler over himself so that not a bit of him could be seen. He even teased the guards, calling, ‘Here I am!’ The guards ran towards him, but by the time they reached the spot, he had already hopped into another corner beneath a thaler and was calling, ‘Hey, here I am!’ The guards hurried over, but Thumbling was already in a third corner, calling, ‘Hey, here I am!’ And so he made fools of them, chasing them round the treasury until they grew tired and went away. Then he threw all the thalers out, one by one. He flung the last with all his might, sprang nimbly onto it, and flew down through the window with it. The robbers praised him highly. ‘You are a mighty hero,’ they said. ‘Will you be our captain?’ But Thumbling thanked them and said he wanted to see the world first. They divided the spoils, but the little tailor asked for only one kreuzer, since he could carry no more.

Then he buckled his sword about his waist again, bade the robbers good day, and took to the road. He worked for several master tailors, but none of the work pleased him, and at last he hired himself out as a servant at an inn. The maids could not bear him, however, for though they could not see him, he saw everything they did in secret, and told their employers what they had taken from the plates and carried off from the cellar for themselves. ‘Just you wait, we’ll make you pay for that,’ they said, and plotted a trick to play on him. Soon afterwards, when one of the maids was cutting grass in the garden, she saw Thumbling hopping about and climbing up and down the plants. She quickly swept him up with the cut grass, tied it all in a large cloth, and secretly threw it to the cows. Among them was a large black cow, which swallowed him along with the grass without hurting him. But he did not like it down there, for it was quite dark and there was no lamp burning. When the cow was milked, he called, ‘Strip, strap, stroll, is the pail nearly full?’

But over the noise of the milking, no one could make out his words. Afterwards the master came into the cowshed and said, ‘That cow is to be slaughtered tomorrow.’ Thumbling was so frightened that he cried in a clear voice, ‘Let me out first! I’m in here!’ The master heard him plainly enough, but did not know where the voice came from. ‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘In the black one,’ Thumbling answered, but the master did not understand what that meant and went away.

The next morning the cow was slaughtered. Luckily, as it was chopped up and jointed, not a blow struck Thumbling, but he ended up among the sausage meat. When the butcher came over and began his work, Thumbling shouted at the top of his voice, ‘Don’t chop too deep! Don’t chop too deep! I’m underneath!’ With all the clatter of the cleavers, no one heard him. Now poor Thumbling was in a dreadful plight, but danger lends speed to the feet, and he sprang so nimbly between the cleavers that not one touched him, and he escaped without a scratch. Yet he could not get away: there was nothing for it but to let himself be stuffed into a blood sausage along with the pieces of fat. His quarters were rather cramped, and on top of that he was hung up in the chimney to be smoked, where time dragged terribly. At last, in winter, he was taken down, for the sausage was to be served to a guest. As the innkeeper’s wife cut it into slices, he took care not to stick his head out too far, lest his neck should be sliced through as well. At last he saw his chance, wriggled himself some room, and jumped out.

The little tailor had no wish to stay any longer in the house where he had fared so badly, and immediately set off on his travels again. But his freedom did not last long. Out in the open fields he crossed the path of a fox, which snapped him up without thinking. ‘Oh, Mr Fox!’ cried the little tailor. ‘It’s me you’ve got stuck in your throat. Let me go!’ ‘You’re right,’ answered the fox. ‘You’re next to no use as a mouthful. If you promise me the chickens in your father’s yard, I’ll let you go.’ ‘With all my heart,’ answered Thumbling. ‘You shall have every one of the chickens, I promise you.’ So the fox let him go and carried him home himself. When the father saw his dear little son again, he gladly gave the fox all the chickens he had. ‘And I’ve brought you a fine sum of money in return,’ said Thumbling, handing him the kreuzer he had earned on his travels.

‘But why was the fox allowed to eat the poor little chickens?’ ‘Why, you silly thing, surely your father would care more for his child than for the chickens in his yard.’