"Hop-o'-My-Thumb", also known as "Little Thumbling" (French: Le Petit Poucet), was first published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé in 1697.[1] It is Aarne-Thompson type 327B, the small boy defeats the ogre.[2] This type of fairy tale, in the French oral tradition, is often combined with motifs from the type 327A, similar to Hansel and Gretel; one such tale is The Lost Children.[3]
Summary [edit]
Hop-o'-My-Thumb (le Petit Poucet) is the youngest of seven children in a poor woodcutter's family. His greater wisdom compensates for his smallness of size. When the children are abandoned by their parents, he finds a variety of means to save his life and the lives of his brothers. After being threatened and pursued by an ogre, Poucet steals the magic "seven-league boots" from the sleeping ogre.
Adaptations [edit]
Hop-o'-My-Thumb with the sleeping giant as shown at the
Efteling.
- Hop-o'-My-Thumb, his brothers, and the ogre appear in the final act of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Sleeping Beauty.
- He is also portrayed in Ravel's Ma Mère l'Oye.
- Jean-Claude Mourlevat adapted the Hop-o'-My-Thumb character in the award-winning children's novel The Pull of the Ocean, originally published in France under the title L'enfant Ocean.
- Hop o' My Thumb ... The Story Retold. Laura E. Richards. London: Blickie & Son, 1886. Also, Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1886.
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ Bottigheimer, Ruth. (2008). "Before Contes du temps passe (1697): Charles Perrault's Griselidis, Souhaits and Peau". The Romantic Review, Volume 99, Number 3. pp. 175-189
- ^ Heidi Anne Heiner, "Tales Similar to Hop O' My Thumb"
- ^ Paul Delarue, The Borzoi Book of French Folk-Tales, p 365, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York 1956
External links [edit]
