Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin

The story of Rumpelstiltskin has roots in the oral tradition of many cultures that practiced spinning and has variations across Europe. For many readers, the most familiar version of the tale is the one the Brothers Grimm recorded in the 1800s. A miller boasts to the king that his beautiful daughter can spin straw into gold. The king brings the miller’s daughter to the castle and threatens to have her executed if she doesn’t spin a large quantity of straw into gold by morning. Rumpelstiltskin appears when the girl is crying over her seemingly impossible predicament. For three consecutive nights, Rumpelstiltskin spins straw into gold for the miller’s daughter. Each night, he asks the miller’s daughter what she will give him in exchange. She gives him a necklace on the first night and a ring on the second. On the third night, she has no more valuable possessions left to offer, and Rumpelstiltskin asks for her firstborn child. These sorts of escalating demands are often seen in fairy tales about magical helpers: “They ask for something trivial to start with, then move to something that is beyond the norm of an economy of bartering. The helper or donor quickly moves into the role of villain” (Tatar, Maria.