Fresh Short Story: Thumbelon & Goliath (Fairytale Religion Series)

THERE was once a man named Jesse who longed for a daughter, as he had only three sons: Eliab, Abinadab, and Shammah. In those days, there was much battle, bloodshed, turmoil, and heartache, and Jesse felt that a daughter would brighten his dark hours on this dusty earth. But several years passed without another child being born to him, and he began to lose hope.

He traveled many days and nights to reach a cave at the edge of the Mediterranean, where it was rumored that a fairy dwelt. When finally the water came into view, the exhausted Jesse stripped away his clothing and swam by moonlight, delighting in the cool, crashing waves. Then he rested on the beach, and fell asleep with his head on his pack and his ostrich roped to a scraggly tree.

It was the fairy who woke him. She was only two feet tall, with sand-colored hair, sea-colored eyes, and skin the color of stone. Her dress was spun of moonlight, and a net of pearls covered her head. "You've come to see me; here I am! What is it you seek?"

Jesse leapt to his feet, then knelt at hers -- although even so, he remained the taller. "Oh fairy," he said, "I so long for a daughter, but I have only unwed sons, and my wife has not borne me a child in three long years. Can you help me?"

The fairy tossed her sandy hair. "Simple," she said, and a pair of powerful, gossamer wings like those of a dragonfly spread from her back, and carried her away. When she returned, she said, "Here is a shell of a different kind from those you see on the shore, for it once belonged to the oldest hermit crab in the world, and was her favorite. Put it into a container of sea-sand, and see what will happen."

"Thank you," he said, and gave the fairy sixteen shekels of silver. Then he gathered a bagful of sand, gingerly placed the shell in an emptied pouch, and carried it around his neck on the long ride home. It did not seem so long now that he had hopes for a daughter of his own.

When he arrived home, he poured the sand into a pot, then buried the shell in the sand. It immediately grew and resurfaced with shimmering colours of rose and rain. "How beautiful," said Jesse, and he kissed its back. Thereupon a tiny hand emerged from its opening, and out crawled a delicate and graceful young man! Jesse jumped, then stared in bewilderment. The fresh-born fellow winced in fear, for he was still very soft; but his father went away and returned with petals from an iris, and the tiny boy fashioned them into makeshift clothing using Balm of Gilead as adhesive.

"Can you talk?" Jesse asked. Immediately the boy repeated back to him, in a voice as sweet as that of a newborn star, precisely what he had said. He continued this parroting for many days, until he began to make sentences of his own. Jesse did not know what to feel. He had asked for a daughter, and yet here stood a son barely larger than his thumb, with long, dark lashes and rosebud lips. He was beautiful, but was he what Jesse wanted?

They gave him the name of Thumbelon, for he was so small. Charmed, Jesse's wife made Thumbelon his own living space on a table. He had a bed of loose fleece piled in a pecan shell, a fresh supply of petals for clothing, and a plateful of water which served as a pond.

His brothers ignored him, finding the whole business very odd; but this did not trouble Thumbelon, for his parents loved him so. During the day he would swim in the plate of water or row across it on an oak-leaf boat, with twined pine needles for oars. He sometimes went into the shell for privacy, and still enjoyed playing in the sand. Most of all, he loved to dance and to sing in that otherworldly voice of seabreeze and silver.

One day, his father called his sons together with a very serious expression, and told them that they must leave to join the fight against the Philistines at dawn. Eliab, Abinadab, and Shammah all nodded. They began preparations at once.

But what of Thumbelon? Though he begged his father to let him go, Jesse told him that a battlefield was no place for a tiny, delicate young man who loves to dance and row in a plate-pond. So he stood on his mother's shoulder to watch them ride away at dawn, and they both felt forlorn and sick with worry.

Two weeks later, while Thumbelon lay in his pretty bed at night, an ugly, bug-eyed toad crept through the open window, and leaped right upon the table where he lay sleeping in his cloud of fleece. "What a perfect husband for my daughter," said the toad, and she took up the pecan-shell in which Thumbelon lay asleep, and jumped out the window.

In the swampy margin of a broad stream lived the toad, with her daughter. She was even uglier than her mother, and when she saw the lovely little man in his elegant bed, she could only cry, "Croak, croak, croak."

"Quiet!" snapped her mother. "If you wake him, he might run away. We will place him on that log caught in the stream; it will be like an island to him, and he won't be able to escape. Then we will make haste and prepare the state-room under the marsh, in which you are to live once married."

When the poor little creature woke in the morning, he began to cry bitterly, for he could see nothing but water all around, and no way of reaching the land. He thought he might manage to tear away some bark for a raft, but his delicate fingers had known only the softness of water and fleece, and the smoothness of a polished nut-shell and plate, so he found the task impossible.

Meanwhile the old toad hopped about the "state-room," decking it with wildflowers. Then she swam with her ugly daughter to the log to fetch the pretty bed. The old toad bowed low in the water, and said, "Here is my daughter, she will be your wife, and you will live happily by the stream."

"Croak, croak, croak," was all her daughter could say for herself, admiring the silken locks and fine features of her betrothed; so the toad swam away with Thumbelon's bed, and left him all alone on the log, where he stared about in dismay. He could not bear the thought of marrying the dumb, ugly toad.

As he stood there, a white butterfly flitted over and landed in front of him. Slowly opening and closing its wings, it said, "I heard all that was spoken, and I cannot bear to see such a lovely creature as yourself married to such a wicked monster. Quickly, climb on my back! Mind the wings..."

So he gratefully climbed onto the butterfly's body, and it glided away as though he weighed no more than swan's down. But scarcely had they started toward the house when a locust flew by; the moment it caught sight of him, it swept him off the butterfly's back with its claws, and flew far away.

Oh, how frightened Thumbelon felt when the locust landed in a tree with him, impossibly far from his mother and home! The locust seated itself by his side on a large green leaf, gave him some nectar from the flowers for sustenance, and told him he was very handsome. After a time, other locusts came along and touched him with their feelers. Thumbelon thought he might die of horror. Then the locusts insulted him right to his face. "He has only two legs! How ugly." "What a sickly color he is." "What is that growing about his eyes?" (They meant his eyelashes.)

"Ugh!" they concluded. "He is like a human being." Here Thumbelon glowed with pride, for to be like a human was all his desire. If he were, he could fight with his father and brothers against the Philistines! But the locust who had stolen him was convinced of his ugliness, flew down with him to a wildflower, and told him he might go where he liked.

Something like divine providence intervened, for standing alone on the flower, Thumbelon became aware of a familiar sound: a crowd of human voices. He slid down the flower stem and set off through the grasses toward the sound, maintaining vigilance for any other monsters that might like to capture him next.

He did pass an army of ants, with a captain at the front yelling commands to the line trailing behind; but they paid him no mind, for they were on the war-path. As he drew nearer the human sounds, a mouse made to grab him -- but he threw a handful of dirt in her face, and she was distracted in coughing and rubbing her eyes and cleaning her fur.

At last he reached the source of the sound and saw-- what do you suppose? The entire Israelite and Philistine armies, encamped on opposite hills, with a valley between them! But he could not understand why they were not fighting, for there were no signs of battle at all, and yet it had been many days since his father and brothers departed. Soon he learned the reason why.

If Thumbelon was far smaller than a human, here was his opposite: a giant twice the height of an ordinary man, in battle-worn bronze armor and with a javelin to match his size. He stepped out from the Philistines and boomed, "Cowards! Again I defy the armies of Israel! Again I say to you, choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.”

Thumbelon watched the other side, but no champion emerged. He burned with anger, for he had never heard anyone speak in this fashion about his dear father. Clearly the standoff had continued for many days. He walked down to the Israelite camp, and asked after his father, to whom one of the soldiers carried him, thinking him a fairy and a good omen. Jesse at once took his son in hand and cried, "Thumbelon! How did you find your way here? I told you that this is no place for you!"

"It is more dangerous for me out there, father! Oh, the things I have endured! But tell me, can no one fight this Goliath?"

He shook his head. "Who could possibly defeat him? Yet we find it difficult to deny his challenge, for that would be to admit that the strongest man cannot be found among us. The king will reward any man who kills him with great wealth and his daughter's hand in marriage."

"What about Eliab?" Thumbelon innocently asked, for he always heard that his oldest brother was very strong.

When Eliab heard this, he snapped, “Why have you come here? And with whom did you leave our mother? I know how jealous of men you are and how wicked your heart is; you came only to send me to my doom.”

Deeply wounded, Thumbelon wavered on his father's hand, but then he thought of the rude locusts, and the white butterfly, and the ugly toads. He thought of how far he had come, and straightened his back, and said, "I will fight Goliath."

"You most certainly will not," his father promptly replied.

But Eliab snatched Thumbelon out of his father's hand, ran through the troops until he came to the front of the army, and set Thumbelon down on the ground. "Go on! Win the king's daughter. Though I don't know what you would do with her." He laughed and stepped away.

Thumbelon stared across the valley at Goliath, who was shouting taunts at the army and slamming his javelin pole in the dirt. Every drop of the pole sent up a cloud of dust, and his armor gleamed in the sunlight. Thumbelon regarded his own travel-worn iris garments and leaf shoes. He was not even as tall as a normal man's boot. But he loved his father, and if he could keep his father and brothers -- cruel though Eliab had been -- from potential death, it would be worth the effort. "I accept the challenge!"

Goliath could not even see him, but he assumed that one of the men up front had spoken. So Thumbelon came down to the valley, and the giant laughed when he noticed the tiny man approaching him. Then he scowled. “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks? Come here, and I'll crush you like a bug!" His voice grated and boomed like rocks and thunder.

Then Thumbelon's high, clarid voice resounded so loudly that all could hear him. "You come against us with malice and arrogance, but I come against you with love in my heart for my family and homeland, whom you have defied. This day I will strike you down and nourish the wild animals with your body! All those gathered here will know that love conquers hate."

This comparatively sweet speech, it must be confessed, made the Israelites feel rather uncomfortable, and on the other hill the Philistines were laughing. Goliath moved closer to stomp on him, and Thumbelon realized all at once that he had no idea what he would do. He had come to fight out of love and pride, but the impossibility of the situation overwhelmed him. He began to tremble.

Then the smell of salt air filled his nostrils, and the sound of ocean waves roared into his ears. He felt himself floating in the depths of the sea, burrowing into the translucent arms of anemones and resting on chairs of coral, riding fish with seaweed reins and catching bioluminescent plankton in tiny shells. He laughed for sheer joy, but when the vision faded, he saw Goliath's fresh corpse lying in the dirt, blood pooling beneath it.

All was silent. He turned back to his people, and saw his father standing before them. Then, when their eyes met, Jesse suddenly gave a shout of triumph. The whole army followed suit, and Thumbelon's father carried him through the cheering men to the king, explaining what had happened while they walked.

You see, when Goliath moved for him, Thumbelon had began to sing an eerie, ululating song more beautiful than that of any woman or bird. The giant had stopped in his tracks, staring like a mouse at a snake. Then, seemingly unaware of his own actions, he'd taken his javelin from his back and plunged it into his own chest.

Now Jesse reached the king, who was bound by honor to keep good on his promise of wealth and marriage to his daughter, even though Thumbelon was so very small. King Saul took the tiny man to meet his daughter, who had shining dark eyes and locks like Thumbelon's own, and when he sang for her, she clapped her hands with delight.

So the marriage was a happy one, and they all moved into the palace. When the time came, Thumbelon ruled wisely and well. In fact, believe it or not, he and the princess even had a lovely little child, who grew to be two feet tall.

But the happiest person in this story was Jesse, for not only was his son a hero and king...thanks to the marriage, he had a daughter at last.

---

The Original Thumbelina by Hans Christian Andersen

The Original David & Goliath by the Judeo-Christian God

The major plot points, as well as some words, phrases, and sentences are taken directly from these two sources; most of the latter three are either semi-altered or pure invention.