Saturday, May 13, 2017

Rumpelstiltskin (Pun Intended)

A fairytale of the Brothers Grimm

rumpelstilzchen
There was once a miller, who was poor, but he had a beautiful daughter. Now it came to pass that he came to speak with the king, and to give himself a respect, he said to him, "I have a daughter who can spin straw to gold." The king said to the miller, "That is an art which I am pleased with, if your daughter is as skilled as you say, so bring her to my castle tomorrow, and I will put her to the test."
When the girl was brought to him, he led her into a chamber full of straw, gave her wheel and reel, and said, "Now go to work, and if you do not go through this straw till this morning and turn it  into gold, you must die. " Then he closed the chamber, and she remained alone. There she was, the poor Miller’s daughter, afraid of dying and she understood nothing about how to spin straw to gold, and her anxiety grew so that she began to weep. Suddenly the door opened, and a little man came in, and said, "Good evening, maiden miller, why do you cry so much?"
"Oh," answered the girl, "I am to spin straw to gold, and I do not understand how to accomplish that."

The little man said, "What do you give me if I spin it for you?" "My necklace," said the girl. The male took the necklace, sat before the wheel, and whirled, whirled, whirled, pulled three times until the spool was full. Then he stuck another in it, and whirled, whirled, whirled, thrice pulled and the second was full: and so on, until the morning, and all the straw was spun, and all the coils were full of gold.
At sunrise came the king, and when he saw the gold, he was astonished, and rejoiced, but his heart was only more greedy. He brought the girl into another even bigger chamber full of straw, and ordered her to spin it all in one night if she wanted to stay alive. The girl did not know how to help herself and wept again, but then the door opened, and the same little man appeared, and said, "What will you give me when I spin the straw to gold?"
"My ring from the finger," answered the girl. The little man took the ring, began to purr again with the wheel, and by the morning all the straw had turned into shining gold. The king was delighted at the sight, but wanted yet more gold; he had the girl led into a still larger chamber full of straw, and said: "You must spin more straw into gold tonight, and if you succeed you will be my wife. " "It is only a miller’s daughter," he thought, "But I cannot find a richer woman in the whole world." When the girl was alone, the little man came again for the third time, saying, "What will you give me if I spin the straw again?" "I have nothing more to give," answered the weeping girl.

"So promise me, if you get to be queen, you will give me your first child."

"Who knows how this is going," thought the girl, and knew how to help herself in here great distress; So she promised the little man what he wanted, and the man spun the straw to gold again. And when the king came in the morning, and found all that he had wished, he made out a grand wedding with her, and the miller’s daughter became the queen.
After more than a year she gave birth to a beautiful child, and did not even think of the little man who had helped her three times; when he suddenly entered her room and said, "Now give me what you promised." The queen was frightened, and offered to the male all the riches of the kingdom, if she
could just keep the child, but the male said, "No, I rather have something living than all the treasures of the world." Then the queen began to lament and weep so that the little man felt a pity on her. "I will give you three days," said he, "if you know my name by then,  you shall keep your child."
Now the Queen remembered all the names she had ever heard, and sent a messenger across the country, who was to inquire far and wide what else there would be for names. When the male came the next day, she began with Kaspar, Melchior, Balzer, and said all the names she knew to her, but the man said, "This is not my name." On the second day, she asked the local people how they were called, and said to the little man the most unusual and strange names. "Is your name perhaps, Ribs, or Mutton, or Schnapps?" But it always answered: "This is not my name”.

On the third day, the messenger came back and said, "I have not been able to find any new names, but as I came to a high mountain turning a corner, where Fox and Hare say good night, I saw a small house, And a fire was burning in front of the house, and a ridiculous little man was jumping around the fire, hopping on one leg and shouting,
"Today I bake,
Tomorrow I sow,
I get the child of the Queen;
Oh, how good that no one knows,
that I am Rumpelstiltskin! "

"You can imagine how the Queen was glad when she heard the name, and in the evening the little man came in, and asked," Well, Queen, do you know my name? " She asked, "Are you called Kunz?" - "No." "Are you called Heinz?" - "No." "Is your name Rumpelstiltskin?"

"The devil has told you this, the devil has told you," cried the little man, stomping so hard with his right foot that he drove half his body into the ground, then grabbed the left foot with both hands in his anger and tore himself apart.

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