Our Favorite Fairytales

When my brother and I were little my mother had this huge book of fairytales. Out of all of the stories, our favorite one was Rumpelstiltskin. As children it didn’t seem like other fairytales.

The story begins with an old man telling the King his beautiful daughter can spin straw into gold. The King takes the young woman, puts her in a small room full of straw and tells her to spin the straw into gold, and locks her in the room. She begins to cry and a little dwarf appears. He tells her he can spin the straw into gold for her, but he will need something in return. She gives him her necklace, and he turns all the straw into gold.

The King returns the next morning and he is pleased. Struck by greed, The King takes her into a bigger room and tells her to spin all of the straw in this room into gold. He locks her in the room again. She begins to weep, and the dwarf comes out again. He asks, “what will you give me this time?” She gives him her ring. He takes the ring and turns the straw into gold.

The following morning, the King is pleased again. He decides to take her into the biggest room he has in the castle, and he told her if she spun all the straw into gold in this room he would make her his wife. Once again she begins to weep and the dwarf appears. She tells him she doesn’t have anything to give him. He suggest that he takes her first born child after she married the King. She agrees to it, never really believing she will marry the King. The dwarf spins the straw into gold and indeed the King marries the beautiful woman.

They have a child and the dwarf comes to collect the child. The now queen, forgetting that she made this promise weeps and begs for him not to take her baby. The dwarf thinks about it and makes a deal with her. He decided he won’t take the baby from her if she can find out his name. He gave her 3 days.

Worried, she sent many men to go out in the town to find every name they could possibly find. For the first two days she was wrong. The second night, one of the guards overheard the dwarf saying his name deep in the woods, dancing around a fire. The guard went back and told the Queen. On the third day, the dwarf was expecting her to give up and he would take the baby. She smiled and she gave a few names, and she finally revealed his true name, Rumpelstiltskin.

In the version of the fairytale we had, the dwarf was so angry he stomped three times and shouted, “it was the devil that told you that!” By the third time he said it, he fell through the floor never to be seen again.

As children it was so funny to us that the dwarf became so angry that he fell through the floor. They have different versions, but that was our favorite. Now I am an adult and I’m 8 months pregnant. I think about all the fairytales I want to read to my precious daughter, and I hope she enjoys Rumpelstiltskin as much as we did. I hope I can be just as animated and have an amazing delivery the way my mother did. I hope she finds this tale as entertaining and as unique as we did.