Rumpelstiltskin

Once upon a time a miller lived in a village. His mill was old, and not much flour was ground there, but the miller’s tongue ground away without stopping. And what he loved to boast about most was his daughter Hanna.

One day the king himself rode past the mill. The miller ran out onto the road, bowed to the ground and blurted out, just to seem more important:

“Your Majesty! My daughter can spin straw into gold!”

Hanna, who was standing in the doorway, went pale. But a word, once it has flown out, cannot be caught.

“Now that is a skill!” said the king, narrowing his eyes. “Bring her to the palace tomorrow. We shall see.”

The next morning Hanna was led into a little room where straw lay piled right up to the ceiling. In the corner stood a spinning wheel.

“Spin all of this into gold by dawn,” the king ordered. “If you do not, you will go home in disgrace, and your father with you.”

The door closed. Click, the key turned.

Hanna sat down by the spinning wheel and cried. She could not spin gold! She could not even spin plain wool properly.

Suddenly, creak, the door opened by itself. In hopped a little man no taller than a mushroom, with a long grey beard and a pointed red cap.

“Good evening, miss! Why are you crying so?”

“I must spin this straw into gold, and I cannot,” Hanna sniffled.

“And what will you give me if I spin it for you?”

“My necklace,” she said, and took the red beads from around her neck.

The little man tucked them into his pocket, sat down at the wheel, and off it went: whirr-whirr-whirr! Three turns of the wheel, and a whole spool of golden thread. Three more, and a second one. By morning all the straw had turned to gold.

The king came, saw it, and his eyes lit up. He sifted through the golden skeins and stroked them, all the while thinking where to find more straw. The next evening he led Hanna into an even bigger storeroom, also full of straw.

Again Hanna sat and cried. And again, creak, the little man appeared.

“And what will you give me this time?”

“The ring from my finger.”

Whirr-whirr-whirr! hummed the wheel. By daybreak the whole storeroom glittered.

On the third evening the king took Hanna to the biggest hall of all. The straw lay there in mountains, right up to the windows.

“Spin this too,” he said, “and you will be my wife, the queen.”

And he thought to himself: “I will never find a richer bride anyway.”

The little man came for the third time.

“Well, what will you give me now?”

“I have nothing left,” Hanna whispered.

“Then promise me this,” said the little man, tilting his head. “When you are queen, you will give me your first child.”

“Who knows what will happen someday,” thought Hanna. And she had no choice anyway. She nodded.

Whirr-whirr-whirr! By morning the whole hall shone with gold so bright that it made her squint.

The king kept his word: there was a wedding, and the miller’s daughter became queen. At the feast the miller strutted about telling everyone what a clever daughter he had. But Hanna kept quiet. She remembered who had really spun that gold.

A year passed. The queen had a baby boy, pink and round, with dimples in his cheeks. Hanna was so happy with him that she forgot all about her old promise.

Then one evening, creak, the little man in the red cap was standing in the room.

“I have come for what is mine,” he said. “Remember?”

Hanna hugged her baby close.

“Take anything you like! A chest of gold, horses, all my beads!”

“What would I do with gold? I can spin as much as I please,” said the little man, shaking his head. “To me, something alive is dearer than all the treasures in the world.”

But Hanna wept so bitterly that the little man faltered and scratched his beard.

“Oh, very well,” he grumbled. “I give you three days. If you guess my name, the child stays with you.”

And he vanished.

All night the queen went over every name she had ever heard. The next evening the little man came, and she began:

“Is it Peter? John? Martin? Oliver?”

“No! No! No!” he stamped his little foot at every name.

On the second day Hanna asked people far and wide and collected the oddest names that nobody had ever heard.

“Perhaps you are called Mutton-Rib? Or Cabbage-Ear? Or Shoelace-Longlegs?”

“No! No! And no again!” the little man roared with laughter. “You have only one day left!”

That same evening the king came back from hunting. He sat down beside the queen and said:

“I saw a wonder in the forest today. I got lost among the mountains, and suddenly I saw a little hut under a cliff, and a small fire in front of it. And around the fire hopped a funny little man in a red cap, on one leg, singing:

‘Today I bake, tomorrow I brew, and then the little prince comes too! Lucky it is that nobody knows that Rumpelstiltskin is how my name goes!’”

The queen almost cried out with joy. All night she repeated the strange name so as not to forget it: Rumpelstiltskin, Rumpelstiltskin...

On the third evening the little man came in, rubbing his hands.

“Well, my lady queen, what is my name?”

“Is it Cuthbert?” she asked.

“No!”

“Is it Jack?”

“No, no!”

“Or maybe... Rumpelstiltskin?”

The little man jumped right up. His beard bristled and his cap slid to one side.

“Who told you that?! Who told you that?!” he shrieked.

He stamped his foot, spun round, slammed the door, and ran away. And he never came back.

The baby stayed with his mother. And the miller, when he heard the whole story, sat quietly for a long time by his mill. And when the neighbours asked whether it was true that his daughter could spin straw into gold, he only waved his hand and went on grinding flour in silence.