The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle
Beatrix Potter
Children
9:00 m
Level 2
The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is a children’s book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. It was published by Frederick Warne & Co. in October 1905. Mrs. Tiggy-winkle is a hedgehog washerwoman who lives in a tiny cottage in the fells of the Lake District. A child named Lucie happens upon the cottage and stays for tea. The two deliver freshly laundered clothing to the animals and birds in the neighbourhood. Potter thought the book would be best enjoyed by girls, and, like most girls’ books of the period, it is set indoors with a focus on housework. Potter’s pet hedgehog, Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, and Kitty MacDonald, a Scottish washerwoman, were the inspirations for the eponymous heroine. Lucie Carr, a child friend of Potter’s, was the model for the fictional Lucie. Potter’s Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny make cameo appearances in the illustrations. The Newlands Valley and the surrounding fells are the sources for the backgrounds in the illustrations.

The Tale Of
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle

by
Beatrix Potter

for
THE REAL LITTLE LUCIE OF NEWLANDS

Once upon a time there was a little girl called Lucie, who lived at a farm called Little-town. She was a good little girl — only she was always losing her pocket-handkerchiefs!

One day little Lucie came into the farm-yard crying — oh, she did cry so! “I’ve lost my pocket-handkin! Three handkins and a pinny! Have you seen them, Tabby Kitten?”

The Kitten went on washing her white paws; so Lucie asked a speckled hen — “Sally Henny-penny, have you found three pocket-handkins?” But the speckled hen ran into the barn, clucking — “I go barefoot, barefoot, barefoot!”

And then Lucie asked Cock Robin sitting on a twig. Cock Robin looked sideways at Lucie with his bright black eye, and he flew over a stile and away.

Lucie climbed upon the stile and looked up at the hill behind Little-town — a hill that goes up — up — into the clouds as though it had no top! And a great way up the hill-side she thought she saw some white things spread upon the grass.

Lucie scrambled up the hill as fast as her short legs would carry her; she ran along a steep path-way — up and up — until Little-town was right away down below — she could have dropped a pebble down the chimney!

Presently she came to a spring, bubbling out of the hill-side. Some one had stood a tin can upon a stone to catch the water — but the water was already running over, for the can was no bigger than an egg-cup! And where the sand upon the path was wet — there were foot-marks of a very small person. Lucie ran on, and on.