Thereupon Thumbling fell a-crying, and cried so much that at length his father picked him up and put him in his pocket and set forth to his work.
When they reached the fields the man took his son out and set him down on the ridge of a newly turned furrow, so that he might see the world around him. Then suddenly from over the mountains a great giant came striding toward them.
“See, son,” said the husbandman, “here is an ogre coming to fetch you away because you were naughty and cried this morning.”
And the words had scarcely passed his lips when, in two great strides, the giant had reached little Thumbling’s side and had picked him up in his great hands and carried him away without uttering a sound.
The poor father stood dumb with fear, for he thought he should never see his little son again.
The giant, however, treated little Thumbling very kindly in his house in the woods. He kept him warm in his pocket, and fed him so heartily and well that Thumbling became a young giant himself, tall, and broad.
At the end of two years the old giant took him out into the woods to try his strength.
“Pull up that birch-tree for a staff to lean upon,” he said, and the youth obeyed and pulled it up by the roots as if it had been a mere weed.
The old giant still thought he should like him to be stronger, so, after taking great care of him for another two years, they again went out into the wood. This time Thumbling playfully uprooted a stout old oak, and the old giant, well pleased, cried:
“Now you are a credit to me,” and took him back to the field where he first found him.