he 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 tales 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:--

Once did I catch a tailor proud
Heavy he was as elder wood,
From Heaven above he'd run a race,
With an old straw hat to this place,
In Heaven he might have stayed no doubt,
For no one wished to turn him out.
He fell in my web, hung in a knot,
Could not get out, I liked it not,
That e'en the straw hat, safe and sound,
Nine days ere him came to the ground.

A delightful little rhyme, _Tom Thumb_, is among Halliwell's _Nursery
Rhymes_. It may refer to the Danish _History of Tom Thumb_:

I had a little husband
No bigger than