Tom Thumb in World Myths

 

Tom Thumb isn’t the only thumb-sized character to have made it into popular culture across the world. Indeed the Brothers Grimm came up with Thumbling and the successive Thumbling as Journeyman (also known as Thumbling’s Travels) and as many of the same situations come up, it’s thought there could be strong overlaps of the original Tom Thumb Story and that, except for the King Arthur bits, the original legend might be the same.

Then in world culture we find other heroic characters the size of a thum with Hop o’My Thumb in France, Thumbikin in Norway, Little Chick pea in Italy, the Turkish have Hasan the Heroic Mouse Child, Japan has Little One Inch and Vietnam has Little Finger of the Watermelon Patch.