In order to make himself appear more important, a miller lied to the
king that his daughter could spin straw into gold. The king called for
the girl, shut her in a tower room with straw and a spinning wheel, and
demanded that she spin the straw into gold by morning, for three nights,
or be executed. (Some versions say that if she failed, she would be skewered
and then fricasseed like a pig.) She had given up all hope, when a dwarf
appeared in the room and spun straw into gold for her in return for her
necklace; then again the following night for her ring. On the third night,
when she had nothing with which to reward him, the strange creature spun
straw into gold for a promise that the girl's first-born child would become
his.
The king was so impressed that he let the miller's daughter marry his son, the prince, but when their first child was born, the dwarf returned to claim his payment: "Now give me what you promised". The queen was frightened and offered him all the wealth she had if she could keep the child. The dwarf refused but finally agreed to give up his claim to the child if the queen could guess his name in three days. At first she failed, but before the second night, her messenger overheard the dwarf hopping about his fire and singing:
"Today I bake, tomorrow I brew,
Today for one
Tomorrow for two
Little knows my royal dame
Rumpelstiltskin is my name"
When the dwarf came to the queen on the third day and she revealed his
name, Rumpelstiltskin lost his bargain. In the 1812 edition of the Brothers
Grimm tales, Rumpelstiltskin then "ran away angrily, and never came
back". The ending was revised in a final 1857 edition to a more gruesome
version where Rumpelstiltskin "in his rage drove his right foot so
far into the ground that it sank in up to his waist; then in a passion
he seized the left foot with both hands and tore himself in two."
Other
versions have Rumpelstiltskin driving his right foot so far into the ground
that he creates a chasm and falls into it, never to be seen again. In
the oral version originally collected by the brothers Grimm, Rumpelstiltskin
flies out of the window on a cooking ladle (Heidi Anne Heiner).
The literal translation of his rhyme is:
"Today I bake, tomorrow I brew
The day after tomorrow I'll go and get the Queens child,
Oh, how good that no one knows,
that Rumpelstiltskin is my name!"
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