Rumpelstiltskin

In a faraway kingdom there lived a miller who had a beautiful daughter. The daughter was very wise and clever beyond her years. The miller was very proud of his daughter and told everyone of how clever his daughter was.

Once, a very handsome and powerful looking nobleman was passing through, as the miller talked to him. “My daughter!” The miller said proudly pointing at his daughter who was working outside the house. “She is so intelligent and wise that she can do anything.”

“Anything?” The nobleman asked with shrewd eyes.

“Anything!” The miller said proudly not quiet understanding the tone of the nobleman.

“Bring your daughter here.” The nobleman ordered to the miller.

The miller stared blankly at the nobleman because suddenly the man looked very commanding and overbearing.

Realizing that he had bragged to the wrong person, the miller meekly had his daughter come there.

“Your father says you are a very intelligent and wise girl,” the man said as he removed the hood from his face.

The miller and his daughter both gasped. It was their very own king!

“Your majesty!” Both of them bowed as the king waved it away and continued.

“Your father says that you can do anything.” The king continued.

The miller looked at his daughter with troubled eyes, because he knew that he had got his daughter in trouble.

“My father….” The girl continued.

“SILENCE!” The king said loudly as the two of them fell silent.

“Take away this girl and bring her to the chamber in my palace,” the king ordered to his soldiers.

“Your majesty….” The miller was alarmed. The king raised his hands signaling for silence, looking very angrily at the miller.

“Your father brags a lot about you,” the king continued coldly, as he looked at the daughter. “And so to prove him right, you are going to do something. I am going to give you some straw and a spinning wheel. You are going to spin the straw into gold.”

“That cannot be done!” The daughter shouted as the soldiers led her away, ignoring her shouts completely.

The miller was watching shocked, because he could not believe that just some plain bragging on his part was going to cost his daughter her life. Because the miller knew that if the daughter could not perform the task set to her by morning, the king would kill her.

The daughter was locked up in the chamber in the king’s palace, knowing that it was the last few hours of her life. She knew nothing of turning straw into gold and she thought that it could not be done. Angrily she was cursing herself and her father which was when she heard a voice behind her.

“Why are you crying?”

The daughter turned around violently nearly screaming. She was gasping for breath, as she saw a tiny dwarf stand before her looking at her with an impish smile. Words died in her throat as she shook her head, even more sadly. She was sure that no one could help her and definitely not a dwarf.

She angrily ignored the dwarf when he persisted. “Go ahead, tell me the reason! Why are you crying?”

“I….” the daughter was not able to stop herself as she told the dwarf everything.

A sudden cunning look came to the dwarf’s eyes. “If I do the task for you, what will you give me in return?”

“You can spin straw into gold?” The daughter asked the dwarf in a flabbergasted tone.

The dwarf said nothing as he just looked at the daughter waiting for her answer.

“Who are you?” the daughter asked.

The dwarf shook his head and looked bored and was about to walk away when the daughter shouted. “All right! All right! I will give you my necklace. If you spin straw into gold, I will give you my necklace.”

The dwarf smiled and turned back as he sat near the spinning wheel. He sang a beautiful song and he started spinning.

The daughter watched amazed as the dwarf spun the straw into gold. By morning the dwarf had spun all the straw into gold and he had vanished from there before the king came.

The next morning, the king was watching the chamber in shock as he saw a bundle of gold neatly tied in the middle of the room. The daughter breathed a sigh of relief and was about to quickly walk away when a greedy expression came to the king’s eyes.

“I will believe you, only if you do it again,” the king said asking his guard to place a huge bundle of straw in the middle of the room and after that, the king walked away from there after shutting the chamber from the outside.

The daughter was anxious as she angrily paced the room cursing everyone including the king.

“Another bundle?” the dwarf asked as he appeared in the prison again.

“I will give you the ring in my finger,” the daughter said without any preamble. “Just please….” the daughter said in a pleading voice as she pointed at the bundle.

The dwarf took the ring and before long the bundle of straw was also spun into gold. After that, the dwarf vanished.

The next morning, the king looked greedy beyond imagination as he saw so much gold in the chamber. The daughter saw this and tried to escape before the king gave her another impossible task to fulfill because the daughter knew the sad truth. If the dwarf did help her tonight, the daughter had nothing to give to the dwarf in return.

But then the king was now greedy beyond measure.

“Have the biggest bundle of straw placed here,” he said looking at his guards and then looked at the miller’s daughter, who was looking very scared. “Spin it and I will make you my queen!”

Without a backward glance, the king walked away from the room.

“What can you give me this time?” The voice asked no sooner than the door had closed this time.

“I have nothing to give you.” The daughter said almost angrily.

“You have nothing to give me, right now!” The dwarf said as a very cunning smile lit up his features.

“What do you mean?” the daughter asked looking completely confused.

“After you become the queen..”

“I will give you all the gold that you want,” the daughter said eagerly interrupting the dwarf.

“Gold?” The dwarf was laughing. “Why would I want gold?” The dwarf asked looking at the spinning wheel and the bundle again.

“Then what do you want?” The daughter sullenly asked the dwarf, sure that she was not going to like what the dwarf was going to say.

She was right.

“I want your first born child, which will be born to you, after you become the queen,” the dwarf said

The miller’s daughter was numb with shock as she heard the dwarf’s words.

She pleaded with the dwarf, but the dwarf was adamant. Finally having no other choice, the daughter agreed.

The next day, the king saw the gold and kept his promise. He married the miller’s daughter and she became his queen.

Not having seen the dwarf for quiet some time, the queen forgot all about the dwarf and tried to live her life as the queen of the kingdom.

Soon she was going to be a mother, when she remembered the promise made to the dwarf. She regretted her promise though she realized that she had no choice in the matter.

After the birth of her child, true enough the dwarf came to meet the queen.

“Please do not take my child,” the queen pleaded, but the dwarf would hear nothing of it.

“You promised and you are bound to keep it,” the dwarf said in a sing song manner.

“Please!” The queen said as a single tear fell from her eyes.

The dwarf saw her and frowned. He then suddenly smiled, “I will give you a small puzzle,” the dwarf said as the baby clutched his hand and the queen watched fearfully. “I will give you three days. If you find out my true name in that time, I will let you keep your child.”

The queen was almost giddy with relief as the dwarf vanished from there leaving her baby behind. Happy she thought of all the odd names that she could think up of. But unfortunately all of them were wrong.

She called her soldier and asked him travel to all the corners of the kingdom and tell her of all the strange names that he had heard from there. The man traveled everywhere and two days had gone past and still the queen had not found the dwarf’s name.

In the morning of the third day, the queen was sure that she was never going to see her child again, when the soldier she had sent, came running to her.

“Your majesty, I saw a very strange dwarf singing a song in the woods,” he said without any preamble.

“What song?” the queen demanded more than sure that the soldier had seen the right dwarf.

“He was singing about a treat, your majesty,” the soldier said breathlessly.

********

The evening the dwarf came forward when the queen came forward with her baby.

“Is your name John?” She asked the dwarf.

The dwarf shook his head grinning, because he thought that the queen was merely guessing just to delay the obvious.

“Timothy?”

The dwarf came forward to take the child when the queen said. “Rumpelstiltskin, leave my child alone!”

The dwarf looked like he had been electrocuted as the queen came forward taking her child.

“How…? How…?” Rumpelstiltskin stammered as the queen took her child.

“Be very careful, when you are singing songs in the open,” the queen said with a smile.

“Your man heard me sing my name in the open!” Rumpelstiltskin said looking angry as he stomped his foot so hard that the floor broke and his foot got caught in the floor.

Huffing and puffing angrily, Rumpelstiltskin pulled himself out.

“And I believe this concludes the deal between the two of us,” the queen said with a smile as Rumplestiltskin pulled out a cooking ladle and flew out of the window, never to be seen again.

-Based on the stories by the Grimm Brothers