Rumpelstiltskin

7-9 min read
16 pages

Rumpelstiltskin, the Brothers Grimm tale to read aloud. He spins straw into gold three nights running, and the third time he names his price.

A miller who talked too much found himself in front of the king with nothing to say, and so he said the first impressive thing that came into his head: that his daughter could spin straw into gold.

The king was interested. The girl was brought to the castle that evening and shut into a room with a heap of straw, a spinning wheel and a stool. «By morning,» said the king, and locked the door.

She sat on the stool. She had spun wool and she had spun flax and she had never in her life spun anything into anything, and the straw lay there being straw.

She was still crying when the door opened and a small man came in, who had not come through the door. «Good evening, miller's daughter,» he said. «What will you give me if I spin it for you?»

«My necklace,» she said. He took the necklace, sat down, and the wheel went round — whirr, whirr, three turns — and the first bobbin was full of gold. By dawn the straw was gone and the room was full of bobbins, and the small man was not there.

The king came, and counted, and was delighted, and had more straw brought in that evening. A bigger heap this time.

The small man came again. «My ring,» she said, because it was all she had left, and he took it, and the wheel went round, and by morning the second room was full of gold too.

The third night the king put her in the biggest room in the castle with straw to the ceiling. «Spin all this,» he said, «and I'll marry you. There's no miller's daughter in the world richer than that.»

«I have nothing left to give you,» she said, when the small man came. «Then promise me your first child,» he said.

She did not know what else to do, and a child that does not exist is easy to promise, so she promised it, and the wheel went round all night.

She married the king. A year later her son was born, and she had forgotten the whole business entirely, until the small man walked into the room where she was sitting with him.

«I've come for what's mine,» he said. She offered him everything in the kingdom. He shook his head. Then, because he was in a good humour, he said: «Three days. If you find out my name in three days, keep him.»

She sent messengers to every corner of the country. On the first day she tried every name she knew: Kaspar, Melchior, Balthasar, and all the names in the church register. «That is not my name,» he said.

On the second day she tried the names the servants laughed at: Ribs-of-Beef, Mutton-Chops, Lacey-Leg. «That is not my name,» he said, and he was enjoying himself now.

On the evening of the second day a messenger came back from the far end of the forest. He had seen a fire in a clearing, he said, and a very small man hopping round it on one leg and singing at the top of his voice — and he repeated what the man had sung.

On the third day the small man came in smiling. «Is it Conrad?» she said. «No.» «Is it Harry?» «No.» «Then perhaps,» she said, «your name is Rumpelstiltskin.» He stood absolutely still. Then he went out, and he did not use the door, and he never came back to that castle again.

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Text source: Plot by the Brothers Grimm (1812), public domain. The text was written anew for Marytale — it is not a reprint of anyone else's version.

Where «Rumpelstiltskin» comes from and who wrote it down

Rumpelstiltskin

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