Week 14 Reading Notes A: Rumplestiltskin

(Rumplestiltskin from Once Upon A Time)

Once upon a time, a poor miller had a daughter.  He got into a conversation with the king and told him that his daughter could spin straw into gold.  The king wanted to see this so he locked the girl into a room with a spinning wheel and full of straw and told her if she wanted to live it had to all be spun into gold by morning.  The girl cried and Rumplestiltskin appeared to her & asked what was wrong.  She told him and he said that he could spin the straw into gold for her, but what would she give him in return?  She told him she'd give him her necklace.  They agreed and he spun the straw for her.

The king was so greedy when he saw the gold that he locked her into a bigger room with more straw with the same orders.  She cried again and again made the same deal with Rumplestiltskin but for her ring this time.  By morning the straw was spun into gold.  The king was still more greedy so he locked her into a room with even more straw with the same threat.  He told her he'd marry her & make her his queen if she could spin all this straw into gold.  She cried and Rumplestiltskin appeared to her with the same promise.  The girl said she hadn't anything left to give him but he said once she was queen, he'd take her firstborn child as payment.  The girl agreed because she didn't know what to do.

The next morning the straw was spun into gold & the king married the girl.  Later they had their first child & the queen thought nothing of the little man who'd helped her months ago.  He appeared to her though & asked for the child as promised payment.  The queen didn't want to give up her child.  Rumple agreed that if she could tell him his name within 3 days, she could keep her child.

She tried every name she could think of, all the outlandish ones too.  She even sent out messengers trying to get more names.  Finally on the 3rd night, a messenger overheard Rumple out in front of a house singing about getting the child and giving up his name in the process.

So that night, the queen gave him a couple wrong names & then told him his name was Rumplestiltskin.  Rumple was so mad that he stomped until the ground swallowed him up to his waist.

Bibliography:  Rumplestiltskin by the Brothers Grimm (Crane).  Weblink.