Hop-o’-My-Thumb

Plot:

The parents are no longer able to support their children and intend to abandon them. Hop-o’-My-Thumb, overhearing his parents, plans ahead and collects small white pebbles from a river. He uses the stones to mark a trail that enables him to successfully lead his brothers back home. However, the second time round, he uses breadcrumbs instead, which the birds eat up.

The brothers are lost in the wood. Hop-o’-My-Thumb climbs up a tree and spots a distant light. The boys walk towards it. They come at last to a house, and learn that it belongs to an ogre. Hop-o’-My-Thumb, fearing the wolves, decides to take the risk of staying in the monster’s residence.

The ogre allows the boys to sleep for the night, and provides a bed for them in his daughters’ room. But the ogre wakes up not too long after, and prepares to kill them in their slumber. Hop-o’-My-Thumb, who anticipated the possibility, already planned ahead and replaced the daughters’ gold crowns with the bonnets worn by him and his brothers. As a result, the ogre kills his daughters instead, and goes back to bed. Once he is snoring, Hop-o’-My-Thumb directs his siblings out of the house.

The ogre wakes up in the morning to discover his grave mistake, puts on his seven-league boots, and races after the boys. They spot the ogre while walking. Hop-o’-My-Thumb once again thinks fast and hides in a small nearby cave. The ogre, who is tired, happens to rest close to their hiding spot. Hop-o’-My-Thumb instructs his brothers to make their way home, and meanwhile, removes the boots from the sleeping ogre. He puts them on, and the boots, being magical, resize to fit him.

Hop-o’-My-Thumb uses the boots to make a fortune, and returns to his family’s home, where they live happily ever after.

Characters:

1)Mother and Dad

2)Hop-o’-My-Thumb – Main character

3)Children

4)Ogre – Main Antagoist

5)Ogre’s daughters

6)Ogre’s wife

Morale of the Fairy Tale:

In my opinion morale of the story is: Never give up, don’t panic and use your brains in any situation. Because thats what Hop-o’-My-Thumb did the whole story- he used his brains even if he’s small.

My opinion on the Fairy Tale:

Story is medium long and written on language that will understand even little child, this makes story easy to read anyone. About plot: Story talks about little boy who was smart in the young age and could find problems solution very fast due his intelligence. I like the idea of telling the story about showing that intelligence can save you even from very hard situations. Antagonist is very similar to any evil character from other fairy tales, but dispite that in my opinion parents of Hop-o’-My-Thumb can’t be a ”characters” in this story, by looking how they wanted to kill their children twice and then accept them back to the family. Move like this in my opinion is intresting and maybe even good, because i think Charles Perrault wanted to show that world can be cruel. By looking at the facts, i enjoyed reading this story.

Adaptations of the Fairy Tail:

1)Appear in in the final act of Tchaikovsky‘s ballet The Sleeping Beauty.

2)”Little Poucet” by Steve Rasnic Tem.

3)Hop o’ My Thumb … The Story Retold. Laura E. Richards.

Audio story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiqrhpnYSeE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUiZUYp34nU