Rumpelstiltskin

Wooo!!!

I have come across my fairy tale adaptation, after being reminded of it when talking about something to do with fairies stealing babies from hermaphrodite women.

Anyway… I had to do it for a module in German at uni. We were given a fairy tale to choose from, and make it into a modern story. I decided to modernise Rumpelstiltskin.

For the ones who don’t know the story behind him… here be it:

 

A local miller wanted to impress the local King or Lord or what-have-you. So, he told him that he has a daughter who could spin straw into gold.

The King was interested in this, so he sent her to a dungeon with a spinning wheel and some straw, and told her to make some gold. But in fact, she didn’t have a clue what to do and started to cry, because she was threatened to get her head cut off if she didn’t do it by morning.

 

So, by hearing her crying, a small midgety dwarf thing appeared… and said he could turn the straw to gold in return for something. So he did, and the next morning the King was happy, but wanted more. So he sent her to another room with more straw and told her to do the same again.

Anyway, this repeated for the next night or so, but the girl ran out of things to give the midgety dwarf thing… so he said he’ll do it only if she would give him her first born kid. She agreed and he went on with it. So, the King had enough gold for now and got her to marry the Prince and they both had a kid.

Then… the girl was greeted by the midgety dwarf thing, who demanded her son. She began to get upset and cried, and feeling sorry for her, he would leave them alone if she could find out his name in three days. She thought of every name she knew, and even the conspicuous names. Eventually, she sent out one of the guard people to find some names. He then came across this midgety dwarf thing dancing around and singing, and he mentioned his name.

So, the midgety dwarf thing came back, and feeling ever so confident that she couldn’t know his name (which is Rumpelstiltskin, by the way)… but she knew and said it anyway. Well, he wasn’t at all amused and started stomping his foot on the floor in a tantrum, and his foot eventually went through the floorboards and he got stuck. Some versions of the story actually mention that he cut himself in half trying to get free… Nice.

So… I’ll post my versions up, both in German and English.

Have fun.