Cinderella's marriage to Prince Charming didn't exactly end with the typical fairytale "happily ever after." Cinderella expected all her problems to disappear after she moved in with the prince. However, in the whirlwind of their meeting and quick marriage, the pair found they did not have much in common.
After drifting apart and barely speaking during their next few years of marriage, the king became quietly, and then not-so-quietly, resentful of his son's loveless marriage. He began to berate Prince Charming for choosing Cinderella-- "She must have just wanted this marriage for the fame and money; how could she not love you?"-- and the Prince became increasingly angry too. The queen, who was sympathetic toward Cinderella but unwilling to stand up to the king, remained silent and complacent in Cinderella's treatment.
Together, Prince Charming and the King decided to make some kind of profit off of Cinderella. If the Prince couldn't enjoy his marriage with her, at least she would contribute in some way to the kingdom.
One day, on his usual route back to his little house from begging for food and money (for he was very skillful in manipulation), a little man named Rumpelstiltskin passed by the castle and heard a commotion. Curious, he wandered inside and found Cinderella, the princess of the kingdom, crying in a cell.
"Princess, what are you doing locked up inside your own castle?" Rumpelstiltskin asked in shock.
"The Prince doesn't love me anymore, and I have no use to the royal family. They've ordered me to turn all of this straw into gold to repay them for all the things I've enjoyed living in the castle, but I don't know how I'll ever manage to do it!" Cinderella sobbed.
Rumpelstiltskin smiled, immediately realizing his situation as profitable.
"I happen to know how to spin straw into gold. Do you have anything you would give me if I did so?"
"I don't have much left, but I do have this hairpin that the queen gave me for my wedding day-- it's worth more than all the diamonds in the kingdom," Cinderella answered.
Rumpelstiltskin sat at the spinning wheel, pulled the straw through with a "whir," and created spools and spools of gold. He took Cinderella's precious hairpin and then promised to return the next day.
The next day, the king came into Cinderella's room, expecting to find nothing and to have a reason to exile or kill Cinderella. However, he was surprised to find actual gold and became greedy for more.
When Rumpelstiltskin came back later that night, Cinderella was crying again.
"The king said that if I don't spin more gold, he'll surely kill me. Whatever can I give you so that you'll help me again?" Cinderella asked.
"You've already given me the most valuable thing you own; you don't have anything else material that I want. However, if I spin this gold for you, you will surely end up back in the royal family's good graces. All royal princesses are expected to bear children for their prince; you would be dead without my assistance, so all I ask is that you give me your firstborn child," Rumpelstiltskin said.
Rumpelstiltskin made this request because he had learned about her situation. Everyone talked about her rags to riches story and how lucky she was to be rescued from her terrible poverty and situation; the townspeople didn't know about her reality. Rumpelstiltskin himself, who lived in a little hut with his wife and had to beg to survive, was resentful of Cinderella's royal connections and thought that he deserved to get a break more than she did. Thus, he devised this plan to gain possession of her firstborn to have an edge over the royal family. If he had control over the firstborn child, he could potentially overthrow the king and gain control of the throne.
Cinderella, desperate to survive, agreed to give Rumpelstiltskin her firstborn, and he spun the straw into spools of gold once again.
The next day, the king came into Cinderella's cell and was shocked to find that all the straw had been turned to gold. Immediately, he welcomed Cinderella back into the royal family, for she had contributed greatly to the wealth of the kingdom.
Years passed, and Cinderella eventually became pregnant. Her pregnancy brought her and the prince closer together, and all seemed right.
When she gave birth to her son, Rumpelstiltskin heard the news and was relieved that his plan was finally about to pay off. When he had the baby in his possession, he could threaten and manipulate the king to give him a stake in the kingdom; he'd be wealthy forever and have power over the people.
He showed up at the castle and demanded what he had been promised.
Cinderella, whose life was finally happy, began to cry. Rumpelstiltskin saw her hardship and his hard heart took a little pity on her.
"I'll tell you this: if you can guess my name on the first try tomorrow, you can keep your firstborn."
Rumpelstiltskin disappeared, went back to his house, and began to celebrate. He knew Cinderella wouldn't be able to guess his name; no one in the town knew it.
Cinderella spent the whole night running through all the names she knew, but none of them seemed to fit. Finally, in desperation, she turned to her animal friends who had helped her in her time of need years ago.
The animals flew, scurried, and crawled to Rumpelstiltskin's little house on the outskirts of town, just in time to hear him chanting:
"Today I'll plot; tomorrow I'll gain,
Then I'll steal Cinderella's child,
it is best that no one knows,
Rumpelstilstkin is my name."
The animals hurried back to Cinderella and told her his name.
When Rumpelstiltskin came back, smug and excited to take her child, Cinderella was waiting with a smile.
"Rumpelstiltskin is your name!" she exclaimed.
"How could you possibly know that?!"
Rumpelstiltskin became enraged and stomped so hard that his foot went through the castle floor. In a fit, he grabbed his leg and pulled, ripping himself in half.
Thus, Cinderella (finally) lived happily ever after, with her love Prince Charming and her new son.
Author's note: I wanted this story to continue on from the previous Cinderella story, but I also wanted a shift in the language because this story takes on a different tone than the first one. That's why I made my first sentence a little jarring; readers, if they read my first story, expected Cinderella's chapter to be closed, but this story updates them on where she actually ended up. I added the backstory of Cinderella and Prince Charming's marriage, and I changed the unnamed girl in Rumpelstiltskin's story to be Cinderella (and thus added the prince and king into the story).
Some other changes I made was, for example, who locked the girl up; in the original story, the girl's miller father brags that she can turn straw into gold, and the king asks threatens her to spin the straw into gold. Also, I had Rumpelstiltskin give her one guess instead of three. I changed Cinderella giving Rumpelstiltskin a necklace to her giving him a hairpin, and I did two days instead of three to shorten the story a little. In the original, the miller's daughter (who I changed to be Cinderella) gave Rumpelstiltskin her necklace, her ring, then her promise of her firstborn. Also, in the original, a person overhears Rumpelstiltskin's chant, but I wanted to bring back the animals who helped Cinderella in the first story to rescue her again.
I also added to Rumpelstiltskin's backstory and added in motivation for why he wanted the girl's firstborn. I kept the jist of some of the original dialogue because I thought it added to the story.
Story title: Rumpelstiltskin by the Grimm Brothers; translated by D. L. Ashliman. Link: grimm
Picture link: flickr.com