The classic fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin presents a very different character than the Rumpelstiltskin known to the younger generation raised by parents who believe that fairy tales started with
Disney Studios. Rumpelstiltskin by the Grimm Brothers is dark and surprisingly complex if we dig a bit deeper.
But first, a short summary: a miller brags to the king about the numerous qualities of his daughter. She is supposedly able to spin straw into gold. The king wants to test that. He gives her a
challenge - she has to spin a full room of straw into gold by the night. She is desperate, but a strange little man comes to her. He helps her three nights in a row. He loads three rooms of gold.
Then the king is satisfied and marries the girl, but she is indebted to the little man - she must give him her firstborn. When the kid is born, the little man comes for him, but the girl achieves
a delay of three days. If she guesses the little man's name, she can keep the son. With a lot of help from her servants, she finds the name - Rumpelstiltskin. Well, he reveals it himself. Being
too self-confident proves fatal for him.
Here are also three interesting facts about the story:
- All four major characters (the miller, his daughter, the king, Rumpelstiltskin) are surprisingly complex. Each of them possesses good and bad qualities, which makes them more plastic and believable. This is not usual in fairy tales where mostly pure good and pure evil (black and white, light and darkness) are confronted.
- Rumpelstiltskin has serious sexual undertones. Spinning is associated with life, the creation of something new from the very beginnings of this noble craft. The name of the title character is very close to the slang word for the male reproductive organ in several parts of Germany. The Rumpeltiltskin's demand for the firstborn is understandable if we consider the fact he spent three nights in a row alone with a girl of the right age.
- The word rumpelgeist is in German folklore a name for a mischievous spirit who moves things in the house by night. Legends of such spirits are so widespread that Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm actually wrote four versions of their fairy tale before Rumpelstiltskin was written in 1812 and even then adapted it several times until the final version in 1857.
Can you add something to that?