Rumpelstiltskin

Once upon a time there was a poor miller who had a beautiful daughter. One day he happened to speak with the King, and wanting to seem important, he said, "I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold."

The King said, "That is an art that pleases me well. If your daughter is as clever as you say, bring her to my palace tomorrow, and I will put her to the test."

When the girl was brought before him, he led her into a room piled high with straw, gave her a spinning wheel and a reel, and said, "Now set to work. If by morning you have not spun all this straw into gold, you must die." Then he locked the door and left her alone.

The poor miller's daughter sat there and did not know what to do in the world. She had no idea how straw could become gold, and her fear grew and grew until she began to weep. Suddenly the door opened, and in stepped a strange little man.

"Good evening, Mistress Miller's Daughter," he said. "Why are you crying so?"

"I must spin straw into gold," she said, "and I don't know how."

"What will you give me," said the little man, "if I spin it for you?"

"My necklace," said the girl.

He took it, sat down at the wheel, and — whirr, whirr, whirr — three turns, and the reel was full. He set on another, and again the wheel sang, and the reel filled with gold. So it went all night, until every strand of straw had become shining gold.

At sunrise the King came and was overjoyed at the sight — but his heart only grew hungrier for gold. He shut the girl into a room twice as large, filled with straw, and told her she must spin it all by morning or lose her life. Again she wept, and again the door opened, and the little man appeared.

"What will you give me this time?" he asked.

"The ring from my finger," she said.

He took it, and by morning the straw was gold once more.

The King was full of joy, but still he was not satisfied. He led the girl into a room larger still, heaped with straw, and said, "Spin this too, in one night — and if you do, you shall be my wife." For he thought, even a miller's daughter, if she can do this, would make the richest wife in the world.

When she was alone, the little man came a third time. "What will you give me now?" he asked.

"I have nothing left to give," she said.

"Then promise me your first child, when you are Queen."

The girl thought, who knows if that will ever come to pass? And seeing no other way, she promised. So the little man spun the straw into gold once more.

When the King came the next morning and found all just as he wished, he married the miller's daughter, and she became Queen.

About a year later, she had a beautiful baby, and she had long since forgotten the little man. But one day he stepped suddenly into her room and said, "Now give me what you promised."

The Queen was filled with fear. She offered him all the riches of the kingdom if only he would let her keep her child, but the little man said, "No. Something living is dearer to me than all the treasure in the world."

Then the Queen wept so bitterly that at last he felt sorry for her. "I will give you three days," he said. "If in that time you can guess my name, you may keep your child."

All that night the Queen lay awake, remembering every name she had ever heard, and in the morning she sent a messenger far across the land to gather more. When the little man came, she tried Caspar, and Melchior, and Balthazar, and every name she knew — but to each one he said, "That is not my name."

The second day, she had people ask through all the villages nearby what unusual names they knew, and she tried the strangest ones she could find — "Perhaps you are called Ribbeast, or Muttonshanks, or Lacyleg?" But always he answered, "That is not my name."

On the third day, her messenger came home and said, "I found no new name anywhere — but as I came round the edge of the forest, to a high hill where fox and hare bid each other good night, I saw a little house, and before it a fire burning, and around the fire the strangest little man was hopping on one leg, singing:

Today I bake, tomorrow I'll brew, the next I'll take the young Queen's child so dear. How good it is that no one knew that Rumpelstiltskin is the name I bear!

You can imagine how glad the Queen was to hear that! Soon after, the little man came in and asked, "Now, Your Majesty, what is my name?"

"Is it Conrad?" she asked first.

"No."

"Is it Harry?"

"No."

"Then... could your name be Rumpelstiltskin?"

At that the little man let out a terrible shriek. "Someone must have told you! Someone must have told you!" And in his fury and disappointment, he stamped his foot so hard that it sank deep into the earth. Then, raging that his secret was out, he stamped and stamped until he vanished into the ground, and was never seen again.

And so the Queen kept her child, and they lived on together in peace, and never again did the strange little man come to trouble them.