Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin

Published in 2013, Liesl Shurtliff’s Rump: The (Fairly) True Tale of Rumpelstiltskin is a middle-grade fantasy novel that reinterprets the classic fairy tale. Twelve-year-old Rump lives in a magical kingdom where people’s names determine their destinies, and his name does not seem auspicious. His luck seems to change when he discovers that he can spin straw into gold, but Rump soon realizes that he is spinning himself deeper into a curse. To break the curse, he must embark on a dangerous quest to find his true name. The novel won the IRA Children’s Book Award (2014), the Judy Lopez Memorial Award Honor (2014), and the Arizona Grand Canyon Reader Award (2017) and explores themes of fate, friendship, and courage.

Citations in this study guide refer to the eBook edition released by Random House Children’s Books in 2018.

Plot Summary

In a magical world where names determine people’s destinies, Rump is the butt of everyone’s jokes. His mother died before she could say his full name, and his grandmother raised him in the Village on the Mountain. Rump spends his 12th birthday toiling in vain in the gold mines. When the miller’s sons bully him, a girl named Red comes to his aid. That evening, Rump discovers his mother’s spinning wheel behind a wood pile. He makes his first attempt at spinning, and gold-loving pixies surprise him by flying off with the wool he spins. The next day, Rump sees the miller’s daughter, Opal, spinning yarn when he collects his meager rations at the mill. Rump goes off into the Woods to be alone, but he encounters Red and her grandmother, who is a witch. The Witch of the Woods tells Rump that he must find his destiny before he can learn his full name, and she predicts that he will succeed after causing a great deal of trouble. One day, a traveling peddler transforms a piece of lint into a mouse, causing Rump to long for magic of his own. That night, Rump realizes that he can spin straw into gold, but his excitement turns into fear when he sees the miller’s sons skulking outside his window.

The miller’s sons tell their father that Rump can spin straw into gold, and the man cruelly refuses to give Rump any rations unless he trades the magical gold for them. Deprived of food, Gran falls deathly ill. Rump decides to exchange the golden thread for food in his desperation, ignoring Red’s warnings. But despite Rump’s efforts, Gran dies three days later. Rump spends the next four months in a state of numbness, trading spun gold for meager rations.

In the spring, the king visits the Mountain. A piece of Rump’s golden thread reached him in the castle, and he believes the villagers are withholding wealth from him. Rump tries to hide the remaining gold in the Woods, but the king catches him. The miller claims that his daughter spun the straw into gold. The king whisks Opal off to his castle, promising to reward her if the miller’s words are true and to punish her severely if they prove false. Rump feels responsible and asks the Witch of the Woods for aid. She tells him that he inherited his mother’s cursed power to spin straw into gold and that only a magical object called a stiltskin can break the curse.

Rump journeys to the king’s castle, where he finds Opal in a tower. Because of the curse, Rump is forced to accept any bargain offered to him. On the first night, he spins a massive pile of straw into gold in exchange for Opal’s necklace. The second night, the king demands that Opal spin an even larger pile of straw into gold, and the miller’s daughter gives Rump an opal ring in exchange for his work. On the third night, Rump spins several cartloads of straw into gold, and Opal hurriedly promises Rump her firstborn child. Rump doesn’t want this bargain, but he is unable to protest. Rump falls from the tower window, and a kindly cook named Martha nurses the injured boy back to health. On the morning of Opal and King Bartholomew’s wedding, Rump promises himself that he will never spin again and begins his quest for the stiltskin.

Rump’s journey leads him into a forest, where he meets a group of trolls who guard magical objects from greedy humans. Rump wonders if a magical apple tree he found in the woods may be a stiltskin, but he heeds the trolls’ warning that the tree’s fruit is poisonous and continues his search elsewhere. At last, Rump reaches the region of Yonder, where his mother was from. He finds his three aunts, who are Wool Witches and live in a house in the forest. They tell Rump that his mother became trapped in magic, a condition called a rumpel. A greedy merchant brought this misfortune on her by challenging her to spin straw into gold and forcing her into unfair bargains. The boy believes that his mother named him Rumpel to signify that he is doomed to share her fate. One morning, his aunts mention news of Queen Opal’s pregnancy. Rump decides that he must live alone because the curse will force him to take the queen’s firstborn child if he learns of the infant’s birth. However, he remains with his aunts for several more months until Red sends him a message warning that the miller is looking for him.

Rump leaves his aunts’ home in the middle of the night, and the miller’s sons capture him. He manages to escape briefly, but the curse compels him to go to the castle after he learns that the queen’s child has been born. The miller reveals that he was the merchant who ruined Rump’s mother’s life. He told the king that his daughter could spin straw into gold knowing that Rump would come to her aid. The miller has captured Red and promises to let her go unharmed if Rump spins a roomful of straw into gold in three days’ time. The magic compels Opal to give Rump her child, and the boy tries to soothe her distress by saying that she can have her baby back if she guesses his name. In reality, Rump simply wishes to give her a distraction and a sense of purpose.

Rump tricks the miller’s sons into taking him to the trolls by claiming that he hid gold in the forest. After the trolls scare the brothers away, one of the trolls takes Rump back to the apple tree, tells him that destiny doesn’t have to be immutable, and eats one of the fruits to prove that it isn’t poisonous despite its cursed origins. Rump realizes that his true name is Rumpelstiltskin because he is tangled up in magic and had the power to break the curse all along. He returns to the castle, gives Opal back her baby when she says his true name, sets a swarm of furious pixies on the miller and his sons, and escapes with Red. Back in the Village, Rump proves that the curse is broken by spinning straw without turning it into gold.