Resizing (including miniaturization, growth, shrinking, and enlargement) is a recurring theme in speculative fiction, in particular in fairy tales, fantasy, and science fiction. Resizing is often achieved through the consumption of mushrooms or toadstools, which might have been established due to their psychedelic properties, through magic, by inherent yet-latent abilities, or by size-changing rays of ambiguous properties.
Mythological precursors
Chinese mythology In the Liezi, the giants of the Longbo Kingdom were shrunk over time as punishment by the heavenly emperor after their burning of the bones of the ao caused the Daiyu and Yuanjiao islands to sink, forcing billions of xian to evacuate their homes.
Hindu mythology In the Ramayana, the deity Hanuman has the ability to alter his size, which he can use to enlarge himself to the size of a mountain or shrink himself down to the size of an insect. The Bhagavata Purana mentions the story of King Kakudmi and his daughter Revati, who go to Satyaloka to ask Brahma for help deciding who Revati should marry. After waiting for a musical performance to finish, they are told by Brahma that many successions of ages have passed on Earth, so all of Kakudmi's candidates for husbands are long gone. When he and Revati return to Earth, they find that the new race of people dwelling upon it are "dwindled in stature, reduced in vigour, and enfeebled in intellect". They find Balarama, who marries Revati and shrinks her down to his size. Along with many other texts, the Bhagavata Purana also mentions some avatars of Vishnu growing to large sizes. The legend of Matsya starting out as a tiny fish and gradually growing bigger whilst under the care of Manu is first told in the Shatapatha Brahmana. Varaha, a boar, starts out as small as a thumb and grows big enough to carry the earth on his tusks. The dwarf Vamana grows to astronomical proportions and takes three steps, liberating the three worlds from the rule of the asuras and sending King Bali to Patala after taking his third and final step. When Krishna and his friends were swallowed by Aghasura, one of the demons sent by Kamsa to kill Krishna, Krishna grew larger and larger inside of him until he burst out through the top of his head. The tenth book and thirteenth chapter of the Devi Bhagavata Purana mentions a battle between the devas and the daitya Arunasura, during which the goddess Bhramari grew to a massive size and began to summon bees and various other insects from her hands. In the Srimad Bhagavatam, Chitralekha shrinks Aniruddha down to the size of a doll and brings him to Usha's palace. According to different sources, two of the eight classical siddhis are aṇimā and mahimā—the ability to shrink to the size of an atom and to expand to an infinitely large size respectively.
Greco-Roman literature In some tellings of the myth of Tithonus, who is granted immortality but not eternal youth, his continued aging causes him to eventually become a cicada. A similar story is told about the Cumaean Sibyl in Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which her wish for longevity results in her aging body gradually shrinking, causing her to become small enough to be kept in a jar. The Metamorphoses also includes a story in which Athena transforms Arachne into a spider such that "her whole body became tiny." According to Porphyry, the love god Eros grows when he is near his brother Anteros, but shrinks back down to his previous small form when they are apart.
Irish mythology According to one variant of a story pertaining to the goddess Áine, her son Gerald FitzGerald has the ability to change his size, which he does when he shrinks himself down in order to jump into a bottle.
Modern depictions In one story narrated in the Norske Folkeeventyr, a tiny character called Doll i' the Grass accidentally falls into a body of water and ends up normal-sized when she is brought out by a merman. In Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), the protagonist Alice grows or shrinks as she eats foodstuffs or drinks potions. The first motion picture to depict a character changing size is Georges Méliès' 1901 trick film The Dwarf and the Giant, in which Méliès portrays a man who splits into two differently-sized counterparts.
In science fiction
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