Degeţel / Degeţica

The story Degeţel (or Prichindel) was published for the first time, in French, by Charles Perrault (1628-1703) in the collection Old Tales or Fairy Tales with Moralities or My Mother Goose's Tales (1697). Degeţel is the youngest of the seven sons of a poor woodcutter, but despite his stature, the little boy is very clever. When Littlefinger is abandoned with his brothers in the forest, he will find all kinds of means to survive together with his brothers, even managing to steal the ogre's enchanted boots which will help him become the king's herald and save his family from poverty. Thimble (in Danish Tommelise) is a fantasy story by the famous Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen first published in Copenhagen in 1835 in the second volume of Children's Tales, together with Boy's Naughty and The Traveling Companion. Although the general idea is inspired by the story Littlefinger by Charles Perrault, the character Littlefinger is Andersen's creation: the story witnesses the adventures of the little girl, the size of a finger, who must first get rid of the son of a frog, then live with a mouse during the winter and get rid of the handsome sable who wanted to become her husband. At the end, Littlefinger is saved by a swallow and falls in love with the flowers.