Hop-o'-My-Thumb

Hop-o'-My-Thumb (Hop-on-My-Thumb), or Hop o' My Thumb, also known as Little Thumbling, Little Thumb, or Little Poucet (French: Le Petit Poucet), is one of the eight fairytales published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou Contes du temps passé (1697), now world-renowned. It is Aarne-Thompson type 327B. The small boy defeats the ogre. This type of fairytale, in the French oral tradition, is often combined with motifs from the type 327A, similar to Hansel and Gretel; one such tale is The Lost Children.

Hop-o'-My-Thumb
Illustration by Gustave Doré (1862)
Folk tale
NameHop-o'-My-Thumb
Also known asLe Petit Poucet
Aarne–Thompson groupingATU 327A (The Children and the Ogre), ATU 327B (The Small Boy defeats the Ogre)
CountryFrance
Published inHistoires ou contes du temps passé (1697)
RelatedThe Lost Children
Hansel and Gretel

The story was first published in English as Little Poucet in Robert Samber's 1729 translation of Perrault's book, "Histories, or Tales of Past Times". In 1764, the name of the hero was changed to Little Thumb. In 1804, William Godwin, in "Tabart's Collection of Popular Stories for the Nursery", retitled it Hop o' my Thumb, a term that was common in the 16th century, referring to a tiny person.

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