While most may be familiar with the story of Rumpelstilzchen (Room-Pul-Shtilts-Khun), not many truly know the origins of this famous tale. This story originated in Europe, and earliest known recording was in 1577 CE. Though this may be the first version of the story written down, many folklorists guess that the idea of a name guessing tales dates back to around 4000 years ago.
The most famous documentation of this story comes from a compilation of stories by the Brothers Grimm. These German brothers compiled stories including “Cinderella,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “Snow White,” and of course, “Rumpelstilzchen.”
As the story goes, a miller boasts to the king of his daughter's ability to spin straw into gold as a way of making himself more notable. The greedy king immediately demands to see the daughter to prove these statements. Though the daughter is unable to do this, she is locked in a room full of straw and is forced to complete the task with a penalty of death upon failure.
As she is weeping to herself, a strange little man appears and offers to help her for a price. Upon seeing his ability to do this, she gives up her necklace as payment, and the man spins the straw.
After seeing gold in the morning, the greedy king orders two more days of straw spinning. The king also says that if she could repeat this feat again, he would make her queen and marry her. Over the following two days when the man appears, he asks for her ring, and eventually her firstborn child.
From then on, the woman marries the king and life continues. After her first child is born the strange man returns to claim his payment. The new queen is so distraught as she does not wish to give up her beautiful child. The strange man takes pity and gives her three days to guess his name or lose the child.
On the first day, she sends messengers to search the lands for names, while guessing more conventional names for the man. The second day she guesses crazier names. On the third and final day, a servant witnesses a man singing about how the queen will not guess his name: “Rumpelstilzchen.”
Upon the guessing of his name, Rumpelstilzchen stomps on the floor so hard that he breaks it and tears himself in two.
Though the moral of the story may be self-explanatory, the ideas behind telling the story to the youth are to warn them of the dangers of lying and greed, as well as the drawbacks of boastfulness. Through understanding these morals, we find that in naming our problems, we take the first step towards getting over them.
B Burdick