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Rumpelstiltskin
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm - No. 55
Once upon a time there was a miller who was poor, but who had a beautiful daughter. Now it happened that he got into a conversation with the king, and to make an impression on him he said, "I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold."
(β¦body too long. Girl gives Rumpelstiltskin everything she owns to spin straw into gold, lest she be killed by the king.)
When the girl was alone the little man returned for a third time. He said, "What will you give me if I spin the straw this time?"
"I have nothing more that I could give you," answered the girl.
"Then promise me, after you are queen, your first child."
"Who knows what will happen," thought the miller's daughter, and not knowing what else to do, she promised the little man what he demanded. In return the little man once again spun the straw into gold.
When in the morning the king came and found everything just as he desired, he married her, and the beautiful miller's daughter became queen.
A year later she brought a beautiful child to the world. She thought no more about the little man, but suddenly he appeared in her room and said, "Now give me that which you promised."
The queen took fright and offered the little man all the wealth of the kingdom if he would let her keep the child, but the little man said, "No. Something living is dearer to me than all the treasures of the world."
Then the queen began lamenting and crying so much that the little man took pity on her and said, "I will give you three days' time. If by then you know my name, then you shall keep your child."
The queen spent the entire night thinking of all the names she had ever heard. Then she sent a messenger into the country to inquire far and wide what other names there were. When the little man returned the next day she began with Kaspar, Melchior, Balzer, and said in order all the names she knew. After each one the little man said, "That is not my name."
The second day she sent inquiries into the neighborhood as to what names people had. She recited the most unusual and most curious names to the little man: "Is your name perhaps Beastrib? Or Muttoncalf? Or Legstring?"
But he always answered, "That is not my name."
On the third day the messenger returned and said, "I have not been able to find a single new name, but when I was approaching a high mountain in the corner of the woods, there where the fox and the hare say good-night, I saw a little house. A fire was burning in front of the house, and an altogether comical little man was jumping around the fire, hopping on one leg and calling out:
Today I'll bake; tomorrow I'll brew,
Then I'll fetch the queen's new child,
It is good that no one knows,
Rumpelstiltskin is my name.
You can imagine how happy the queen was when she heard that name. Soon afterward the little man came in and asked, "Now, Madame Queen, what is my name?"
She first asked, "Is your name Kunz?"
"No."
"Is your name Heinz?"
"No."
"Is your name perhaps Rumpelstiltskin?"
"The devil told you that! The devil told you that!" shouted the little man, and with anger he stomped his right foot so hard into the ground that he fell in up to his waist. Then with both hands he took hold of his left foot and ripped himself up the middle in two.
Source: Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, "Rumpelstilzchen," Kinder- und HausmΓ€rchen, vol. 1 (GΓΆttingen: Verlag der Dieterichschen Buchhandlung, 1857) [Children's and Household Tales β Grimms' Fairy Tales], no. 55, pp. 281-84.
The Grimms' source: Henriette Dorothea (Dortchen) Wild (1795-1867), and other sources.
Translated by D. L. Ashliman. Β© 2002.
Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 500, Guessing the Helper's Name.
The Grimms included this tale, in a simpler version, in the first edition of their Kinder- und HausmΓ€rchen (1812). The story underwent a substantial stylistic revision for the second edition (1819). Additional stylistic changes were made in succeeding editions.
Link to a translation of the 1812 version of Rumpelstiltskin.
Links to related sites
Rumpelstilzchen von den BrΓΌdern Grimm, a comparison of three versions of the tale (1810, 1812, 1819), in the original German.
The Name of the Helper. Folktales of type 500, and related tales, in which a mysterious and threatening helper is defeated when the hero or heroine discovers his name.
The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales (Grimms' Fairy Tales).
The Grimm Brothers' Home Page.
D. L. Ashliman's folktexts, a library of folktales, folklore, fairy tales, and mythology.
Revised March 23, 2011.