Perrault’s Little Thumb tells how a poor Fagot-maker and his Wife sat by the hearth, sad with famine, and Little Thumb overheard their words.  When they started to the wood to gather fagots, Little Thumb, like Hansel, scattered pebbles.  The parents left the seven children in the wood but little Thumb guided them home by his pebbles.  They set out a second time, when Little Thumb scattered bread-crumbs; and as the birds ate them, the children were lost.  Little Thumb climbed a tree and saw the light of the Ogre’s cottage afar off.  The children reached the Ogre’s cottage where Little Thumb changed the golden crowns of the seven little Ogresses, and putting them on his brothers, saved their lives.  Then they all fled through the wood and hid in a rock, while the Ogre in his seven-league boots, pursued them and lay down to rest at the rock in which they were hidden.  Little Thumb sent his brothers home, stole the fairy boots, and through craft, persuaded the Ogre’s Wife to give him all the Ogre’s gold.  So, rich and happy, he returned to his father’s home.

This tale shows a number of common motifs that appear in other tales: 

(1) The design of distressed parents to expose children to the
forest.

(2) The discovery and prevention of the scheme by a child.

(3) The repetition of incident; the clew spoiled by the birds. 
The trail motif, similar to the one in Hansel and Grethel.

(4) The arrival of children at the home of the Ogre.

(5) The shifting of crowns to the heads of his brothers.

(6) The flight of the brothers pursued by the Ogre in
seven-league boots.

(7) Little Thumb, stealing the boots and winning court favor, or
the Ogre’s treasure.

Some say that in this tale, symbolically, the forest represents night; the crumbs and pebbles, stars; and the Ogre, the sun.  Little Thumb, because of his cunning and invention, has been called the Ulysses of the fairy tales.  His adventure with the Ogre at the rock, while not a parallel one, reminds one of Ulysses and Polyphemus.  Both succeeded in getting the better of the giant.  An English edition of this tale was illustrated by William Blake.

Snow White and Rose Red

Snow White and Rose Red, besides blending the romantic and the realistic, illustrates rather completely how the old tale may stand the tests which have been emphasized here.  As a romantic type, it contains adventure and the picturesque.  It arouses emotion.  It contains objects of beauty; and the strange Bear and the stranger Dwarf, about both of whom there is a sense of mystery.  It exaggerates character and incidents beyond the normal,—­the Mother and Daughters were more lovely than mortals usually are,—­and the harmony between man and beast may belong to the millennium rather than to this common earth.  This is one of the most romantic of fairy tales in that it is a highly idealized type.