Tom Tit Tot

Rumpelstiltskin
Illustration from Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book (1889)
Folk tale
Name	Rumpelstiltskin
Also known as	Tom Tit Tot Päronskaft Repelsteeltje
Data
Country	Germany England Netherlands
Published in	Grimm's Fairy Tales English Fairy Tales

Rumpelstiltskin is a fairy tale popularly associated with Germany (where he is known as Rumpelstilzchen). The tale was one collected by the Brothers Grimm in the 1812 edition of Children's and Household Tales. According to researchers at Durham University and the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, the story originated around 4,000 years ago.

In order to make himself appear superior, a miller lies to the king, telling him that his daughter can spin straw into gold. (Some versions make the miller's daughter blonde and describe the "straw-into-gold" claim as a careless boast the miller makes about the way his daughter's straw-like blond hair takes on a gold-like lustre when sunshine strikes it.) The king calls for the girl, shuts her in a tower room filled with straw and a spinning wheel, and demands she spin the straw into gold by morning or he will cut off her head (other versions have the king threatening to lock her up in a dungeon forever). When she has given up all hope, an imp-like creature appears in the room and spins the straw into gold in return for her necklace (since he only comes to people seeking a deal/trade). When next morning the king takes the girl to a larger room filled with straw to repeat the feat, the imp once again spins, in return for the girl's ring. On the third day, when the girl has been taken to an even larger room filled with straw and told by the king that he will marry her if she can fill this room with gold or execute her if she cannot, the girl has nothing left with which to pay the strange creature. He extracts from her a promise that she will give him her firstborn child and so he spins the straw into gold a final time. (In some versions, the imp appears and begins to turn the straw into gold, paying no heed to the girl's protests that she has nothing to pay him with; when he finishes the task, he states that the price is her first child, and the horrified girl objects because she never agreed to this arrangement.)

The king keeps his promise to marry the miller's daughter. But when their first child is born, the imp returns to claim his payment: "Now give me what you promised." She offers him all the wealth she has to keep the child but the imp has no interest in her riches. He finally consents to give up his claim to the child if she can guess his name within three days. Her many guesses fail, but before the final night, she wanders into the woods (some versions she sent a servant in the woods instead of going herself to keep the king's suspicions at bay) searching for him and comes across his remote mountain cottage and watches, unseen, as he hops about his fire and sings. In his song's lyrics, "tonight tonight, my plans I make, tomorrow tomorrow, the baby I take. The queen will never win the game, for Rumpelstiltskin is my name'", he reveals his name. Some versions have the imp limiting the number of daily guesses to three and hence the total number of guesses allowed to a maximum of nine.