“How very beautiful he is,” whispered Thumbeline to the swallow. The little prince was quite frightened by the swallow, for it was a perfect giant of a bird to him, he who was so small and delicate, but when he saw Thumbeline he was delighted; she was the very prettiest girl he had ever seen. He therefore took the golden crown off his own head and placed it on hers, and asked her name, and if she would be his wife, and then she would be queen of the flowers! Yes, he was certainly a very different kind of husband from the toad’s son, or the mole with his black velvet coat. So she accepted the beautiful prince, and out of every flower stepped a little lady or a gentleman so lovely that it was a pleasure to look at them. Each one brought a gift to Thumbeline, but the best of all was a pair of pretty wings from a large white butterfly; they were fastened on to her back, and then she too could fly from flower to flower. All was then delight and happiness, but the swallow sat alone in his nest and sang to them as well as he could, for his heart was heavy, he was so fond of Thumbeline himself and would have wished never to part from her.
“You shall not be called Thumbeline,” said the flower-fairy to her; “that is such an ugly name, and you are so pretty. We will call you Maia.”
Of course the Fairy Prince’s story was quite true, and as proof of it there was Thumbeline, or Maia, as she was sometimes called, sitting not very far away in the very front circle of fairies, and having made his bow to the king and queen, the little prince stepped proudly back to his seat by her side, and all the fairies loudly cheered the pretty couple. When the cheering had stopped it was seen that there were several of the company trying to get on the tale-tellers’ stool at once, all anxious to win such cheering. King Oberon’s trumpeter, standing on the steps of the throne, blew loudly and the squabble stopped at once, each of the competitors turning round and expecting to be told that he was the favoured one, but Oberon was too wise for that and bade them all go back to their places and not to come forward again until called upon to do so, and he then turned to Titania and said:
“Our queen shall select the next tale-teller. Who, my Titania, shall it be?”
And the queen pointed out a little fairy dressed all in green with a tiny golden harp in her hand and with a wreath of shamrock round her head, saying:
“Let an Irish fairy tell us something of the doings in her green land.”
The little one in green at once came forward and said that the story she had to tell would not be a pretty one such as that about Thumbeline, but it would be about one of those mischievous changelings who got the fairies such a bad name among some people, and her story would be called
