Rumpelstiltskin

 

One day, a man took his daughter to see the king. He told the king that his daughter could spin straw into gold. This was a lie, as this could not be done without some form of magic. However, the king believed this lie, and he took the girl to a room with heaps of heaps of heaps of straw. He told her that she had to spin all the straw in the room into gold before the next day. He went outside and closed the door. Once he was gone, the girl began to cry. ‘I cannot do this!’ she sobbed. 

Suddenly, a funny little man came into the room. He told the girl that if she gave him her necklace, he would spin all the straw into gold. The girl agreed, and soon all the straw had been turned into gold. 

The same thing happened the next day, except that there was even more straw and that the little man had asked for the girl’s ring. The next day, the king told the girl that if she spun even more straw, she would be his queen. The funny little man came back and asked for the girl’s first child. She very foolishly agreed. By the next day, all the straw had been turned into gold. So, the king married the girl, and she became his queen. Soon, they had a child. 

One day, the funny little man jumped through the Queen’s window. He asked her for her child. She started to cry, so the funny little man decided to give her a chance to keep her baby. So he asked her to guess his name. She would have ten days, and every day she could guess ten times. If she got it right before or on the hundredth try, she would keep her baby. If not, he would give her three more tries the next day. If she did not guess it right by the eleventh day, he would take her baby. 

Once he was gone, the queen sent her men to find every name they could. The person who gave her the right name would receive a reward. But she had no luck in the first ten days. She could not guess the name of the man. On the tenth day, a woodcutter went to the forest to look for some dead logs to cut up. Then, he saw the funny little man. He was singing:

“The queen will never win my game,

For Rumpelstiltskin is my name!’

He rushed out of the forest, went to the palace, and told the queen. The next day, when the man asked her to guess his name, she said, ‘Is your name Ronald?’ she asked. ‘No.’ said Rumpelstiltskin. ‘Is your name Tom?’ she asked. ‘No.’ said Rumpelstiltskin. ‘Is your name…. Rumpelstiltskin?’ The man was so enraged that the queen had guessed right that he ra into the woods and was never seen again.


Location: Colombo, Sri Lanka

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