''The Mummy's Foot'' (french: Le Pied de momie) is a horror short story by the French writer

Théophile Gautier Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic. While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and rem ...

, first published in

1840 Events January–March * January 3 – One of the predecessor papers of the ''Herald Sun'' of Melbourne, Australia, ''The Port Phillip Herald'', is founded. * January 10 – Uniform Penny Post is introduced in the United Kingdom. * Janua ...

. It relates the fantastical tale of a contemporary man and the adventures which befall him when he ventures into a Parisian curiosity shop and buys the four-thousand-year-old foot of Princess Hermonthis.

Plot summary

A man enters an

antiques shop An antique shop (or antiques shop) is a retail store specializing in the selling of antiques. Antiques shops can be located either locally or, with the advent of the Internet, found online. An antiques shop can also be located within an anti ...

and buys a

mummified A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...

foot which supposedly belonged to an Egyptian princess, Hermonthis. He intends to use the foot as a

paperweight A paperweight is a small solid object heavy enough, when placed on top of papers, to keep them from blowing away in a breeze or from moving under the strokes of a painting brush (as with Chinese calligraphy). While any object, such as a stone, ...

. In the night, he sees a vision of the princess, who explains her foot has been stolen, and he agrees to return her foot in exchange for a small

statuette A figurine (a diminutive form of the word ''figure'') or statuette is a small, three-dimensional sculpture that represents a human, deity or animal, or, in practice, a pair or small group of them. Figurines have been made in many media, with cl ...

. The princess steals him away to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

where he meets her father and several other ancient

pharaohs Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the ann ...

. Hermonthis' father, Xixouthros, is appropriately pleased that his daughter's foot is returned to the rest of her. Xixouthros asks what he can do in appreciation. The

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...

asks Hermonthis' hand in marriage, which is refused, as he is only 27 and Hermonthis is over 30 centuries, and deserves someone who is equally durable. The protagonist is abruptly woken from this potential dream by the arrival of a friend. Now awake, he observes that the mummified foot that was on his desk has indeed been replaced by the statuette.

Adaptations

The story was adapted for television as part of the

NBC Television The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

anthology series ''

Your Show Time ''Your Show Time'' is an American anthology drama series that debuted on NBC Television on the East Coast in September 1948 and then on both the East and the West Coast, as a network show, on January 21, 1949. The show was produced by Marshall Gr ...

'', airing February 11, 1949.

External links

* * * 1840 short stories Human-mummy romance in fiction Fiction about mummies Short stories by Théophile Gautier Gothic short stories Works originally published in Musée des familles {{story-stub