ught him up in his beak, and carried him to the top of a great
giant's castle. The giant would have eaten Tom up; but the fairy
dwarf scratched and bit his tongue and held on by his teeth till the
giant in a passion took him out again and threw him into the sea,
when a very large fish swallowed him up directly. The fish was caught
soon after and sent as a present to King Arthur, and when the cook
opened it there was Tom Thumb inside. He was carried to the king, who
was delighted with the little man.

The king ordered a little chair to be made, in order that Tom might
sit on his table, and also a palace of gold a span high, with a door
an inch wide, for little Tom to live in. He also gave him a coach
drawn by six small mice.

This made the queen angry, because she had no a new coach too;
therefore, resolving to ruin Tom, she complained to the king that he
had spoken insolently to her. The king sent for him. Tom, to escape
his fury, crept into an empty snail shell, and lay there till he was
almost starved; when peeping out of the shell he saw a fine butterfly
settled on the ground: he now ventured out, and getting on it, the
butterfly took wing, and mounted into the air with little Tom on his
back. Away he flew from field to field, from tree to tree, till at
last he flew to the king's court. The king, queen, and nobles all
strove to catch the butterfly but could not. At length poor Tom,
having neither bridle or saddle, slipped from his seat and fell into
a pool of water, where he was found nearly drowned. The queen vowed
he should be beheaded, and while the scaffold was getting ready, he
was secured in a mouse-trap; when the cat seeing something stir
supposing it to be a mouse, patted the trap about till she broke it,
and set Tom at liberty.

Sometimes Tom rode out on a mouse for a horse. One day a big black
met him along the road, and wanted to kill the mouse. Tom jumped off
the mouse's back, drew his sword, and fought the cat, and made her
run away.

In order to show his courage and please the queen, the new knight
undertook a terrible adventure.

In one corner of the palace garden there was found a great black
spider, of which the lady was very much afraid.

Tom undertook to kill this insect; so he took a gold button for a
shield, and his sharp needle-sword, and went out to attack the
spider; the knights went also, to witness the combat.

Tom drew his sword and fought valiantly, but the spider's poisonous
bre