乐播传媒

Tale Summary

A miller with a very beautiful daughter is summoned to see the king and tried to alleviate himself of the unease of never being at court before by saying that she could spin straw into gold. The king is intrigued and has her sent for, and she arrives the next day. He locks her in a room filled with straw and commands her to either spin it all into gold before morning or die. The girl weeps because she does not know how, when a strange-looking little man appears, and asks why she cries. When she explains her predicament, he offers to do the impossible task for her, at a price. She gives him her necklace, and by morning, all of the straw has been spun into gold. The king, even greedier now that he sees it, locks her in an even larger room full of straw, and commands, as before, that it be spun into gold by the next day. Again, the little man appears to the miller鈥檚 daughter and spins it in exchange for her ring. The king once more demands the same task of the girl but promises she will be Queen if she succeeds. When the little man appears, the girl says she has nothing left to offer. He asks for her firstborn child if ever she is to become Queen, and she agrees. After the king sees the room full of gold which the little man has spun, she does become Queen, and a year later she has forgotten her promise and has a child. The little man arrives and demands what he is owed, but the Queen is so pitiful, that he gives her three days to guess his name, and if she does so, she will be allowed to keep her child. On the first day, the Queen lists off every name she can think of. With the help of a messenger, the second day is spent guessing the most unusual names in the land. On the third day, the messenger comes back and says that, on the edge of the forest by a mountain, a strange little man was dancing on one foot in front of a fire, and that in his song he hears his name is 鈥楻umpelstiltskin鈥�. The Queen guesses this name, and the little man is so furious that he stomps hard enough on the ground that his right foot becomes stuck, and then comes off when he pulls on his left one. The Queen keeps her child, and Rumpelstiltskin听is not heard from again.

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