Tom Thumb, as has been previously mentioned, most probably was transmitted to England by the early Norsemen. The Tale of Tom Thumb, as told by Jacobs, was taken from the chap-book version in Halliwell.  The first mention of Tom is in Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, in 1584.  Tradition says that Tom died at Lincoln, which was one of the five Danish towns of England.  A little blue flagstone in the cathedral, said to be his tombstone, was lost and has never been replaced during recent repairs early in the nineteenth century. Tom Thumb was first written in prose by Richard Johnson, in 1621.  In Ashton’s Chap-Books of the Eighteenth Century we have a facsimile of the chap-book, The Famous History of Tom Thumb.  The tale is in three parts.  The first part, which is much superior to the rest of the tale, was taken from a copy printed for John Wright, in 1630.  The second and third parts were written about 1700.  The first part closes with the death of Tom from knightly feats.  He was buried in great pomp, but the fairies carried him to Fairy Land.  The first part closed with a promise of the second:—­

     The Fairy Queen, she lov’d him so
     As you shall understand,
     That once again she let him go
     Down to the Fairy Land.

     The very time that he return’d
     Unto the court again,
     It was as we are well inform’d
     In good King Arthur’s reign.

     When in the presence of the King,
     He many wonders wrought,
     Recited in the Second Part
     Which now is to be bought

     In Bow Church Yard, where is sold
     Diverting Histories many;
     And pleasant tules as e’er was told
     For purchase of One Penny.

The second part opens with Tom’s return to Fairy Land.  His second death is caused by a combat with a cat.  Again he is taken to Fairy Land.  In the third part the Fairy Queen sends Tom to earth in King Thunston’s reign.  His final death occurred from the bite of a spider.

The Life and Adventures of Tom Thumb appeared in the Tabart Collection of Fairy Tales, noted before, and a version entirely in verse was included in Halliwell.  A monograph on Tom Thumb was written by M. Gaston Paris. Little Thumb as it appeared in Perrault and in Basile, was a tale similar to the German Hansel and Grethel. Thumbling, and Thumbling as Journeyman are German variants.  Andersen’s Thumbelina is a feminine counterpart to Tom Thumb, and in Laboulaye’s Poucinet we have a tale of the successful younger brother, similarly diminutive.

There were current many old stories of characters similar to Tom Thumb.  A certain man was so thin that he could jump through the eye of a needle.  Another crept nimbly to a spider’s web which was hanging in the air, and danced skillfully upon it until a spider came, which spun a thread round his neck and throttled him.  A third was able to pierce a sunmote with his head and pass his whole body through it.  A fourth was in the habit of riding an ant, but the ant threw him off and trampled him.  In a work written in 1601, referred to in Grimm’s Household Tales a spider relates:—­