Long ago a poor miller had a clever daughter. One day, hoping to seem important, he told the king, “My daughter can spin straw into gold!”
The king was amazed and curious. He took the girl to a castle room filled with straw and a spinning wheel.
“If you can spin this into gold by morning,” he said, “you shall be rewarded. If not, there will be trouble.”
When the door closed, the girl sat down and cried. She could not spin straw into gold. She could not spin straw into anything.
Suddenly a tiny man with a pointed hat appeared.
“Why are you weeping?” he asked.
She told him everything. The little man smiled. “What will you give me if I help?”
“My necklace,” she said.
He took it, sat at the wheel, and whirred all night. By dawn the straw had become shining gold.
The next night the king filled a bigger room with straw. Again the girl wept, and again the little man came.
“What will you give me now?”
“My ring,” she said.
Once more he spun until morning. Gold glittered everywhere.
On the third night the room was largest of all. The king said, “If you succeed tonight, you shall marry me and become queen.”
The girl had nothing left to give. The little man tilted his head.
“Promise me your first child when you are queen,” he said softly.
Afraid and alone, she promised. The little man spun the last of the straw into gold. In the morning the king kept his word, and the miller’s daughter became queen.
A year later she had a beautiful baby. She had almost forgotten her promise—until the little man returned.
“Now give me what you promised,” he said.
The queen held her child close. “Please take all my treasures instead.”
He shook his head. “I do not want treasures. But I will give you three days. If you can guess my name, you may keep your child.”
The first day the queen guessed every name she knew: Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar, Tim, Tom, and more. The little man laughed. “That is not my name!”
The second day she sent messengers through the kingdom for unusual names. Still he laughed. “Not my name!”
On the third evening a messenger returned breathless. “Beyond the mountains I saw a tiny man dancing around a fire and singing:
‘Today I brew, tomorrow I bake, And then the queen’s child I will take. How glad I am that no one knew My name is Rumpelstiltskin!’”
The queen almost smiled with relief.
When the little man appeared, she asked calmly, “Is your name Conrad?”
“No!”
“Is it Harry?”
“No!”
“Then… is it Rumpelstiltskin?”
The little man’s eyes grew wide. “The goblins told you! The goblins told you!” he cried. He stamped his foot so hard that his boot stuck in the floor, then hopped away into the forest, never to trouble the queen again.
The queen hugged her baby and whispered thank-you to the kind messenger. From that day she told only honest stories, and her castle was filled with laughter, not boasts.
The end.
Based on the public domain tale by the Brothers Grimm, gently adapted for bedtime.
