The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is a children's book by Beatrix Potter published in 1905.
Lucie is a little girl who has lost three pocket handkerchiefs and a pinafore. In the back of a hill called Cat Bells, she finds a door leading into the home of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, the animals' washerwoman, who has found and washed Lucie's things.
This book provides examples of:
- Brits Love Tea: When the laundry is done, Lucie and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle have a cup of tea (and they're implied to be British due to the wildlife and the fact that the author was British).
- The Cameo: Peter Rabbit makes a brief cameo, along with Benjamin Bunny.
- Character Tics: Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle keeps sniffing.
- Continuity Nod: In The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, Benjamin and Peter wrap a bundle of onions in a handkerchief for Peter's mother. In this book, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is trying to launder that handkerchief and complains she can't get the onion smell out of it. The handkerchief looks the same (red with white polka-dots and white trim) in both books, too.
- Follow the White Rabbit: Lucie follows a robin over a stile, then climbs an uphill path, which ends at Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle's door.
- Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Subverted with Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. After Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle has given the other animals their clean laundry, Lucie, turning to thank her, sees the washerwoman running up the hill unclothed. It's then that Lucie realizes Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is a hedgehog.
- Fur Is Clothing: Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle washes the fur coats of several animals.
- Humans Are Cthulhu: Subverted. The book focuses on a female human protagonist, and the other animals aren't actually afraid of her, not even Peter Rabbit, who's had two narrow escapes from a human's garden.
- Musical Chores: Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle initially sings while doing the laundry.
- No Full Name Given: We don't know Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle's first name.
- Or Was It a Dream?: The author says that some say Lucie had fallen asleep on the stile, but that if it was just a dream, how could she have found three clean pocket handkerchiefs and a pinafore, made into a bundle pinned with a silver safety-pin? The author adds that she has seen that door into the back of the hill and is very well acquainted with Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.
- Talking Animal: Several, including Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.
- Token Human: Lucie is the only human character in the book.
- Wrong Assumption: Lucie thinks the quills poking out of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle's cap and gown are hair-pins sticking wrong end out.
