Once long ago a miller wanted to win the king's interest and lied by boldly claiming his daughter can spin straw into gold.

"My King, my dearest daughter has the special ability to spin straw into gold. That is a talent no one else in this world possesses but my own."

Naturally of course, this intrigued the king. He summoned the girl, locked her in the dungeon, and commanded, "By morning you must spin three barrels of straw into gold or I will have you and your father executed for lying."

The poor girl did not possess the ability to spin straw into gold and had lost all hope. She begged for a miracle.

Then suddenly, an old hagged imp-like creature appeared. The creature told the girl he would spin straw into gold for her but at a price.

"My dear one, I will spin straw into gold for you but you must give my all the jewelry you are wearing in exchange for my work."

"Yes! Whatever you want, you can have. Please just save my life! I beg you!"

The girl was desperate and so she agreed to the deal.

The next day, seeing that the girl successfully spun all three barrels of straw into gold, the impressed king commanded for her to do it again.

"You shall spin another ten barrels of straw into gold. If you are able to do so, I will marry you and make you my Queen. If you are not able to spin straw into gold, I will have you and your father executed."

That night, the girl begged for the creature to spin straw into gold for her once more.

"Please, I beg of you to help me once more."

The creature saw that the girl had nothing to trade him for his efforts since she had traded him all her jewelry the previous day and denied her plea.

"Please, I beg. If you were to help me once more than the King will make me the Queen. Once I am Queen, I will give you anything you desire."

The creature was intrigued by her claim so he agreed to spin more gold for the girl for a price of course.

"If I were to help you once more, the price I ask is that you give me your first-born child."

The girl was desperate and so she agreed to the deal.

The following morning after seeing that the girl successful spun straw into gold, the king kept his promise to marry her and made her his queen. They had a lavish ceremony with the theme being of course gold.

On the evening that the queen gave birth to her first-born son, the creature returned for his payment. The queen was devastated. She begged the creature for a new deal.

"Please do not take my child. I can offer all the riches you want. Name me anything else but my child and I will make it come true."

"Silly Queen, I can spin straw into gold. I can make my own riches for money is not what I desire. What I like is a good trade, but perhaps I can be persuaded."

The creature was drawn to tricks and games, so he proposed a deal.

"If you could guess my name within three days, you could keep your child. If not, the child is mine to keep"

The queen failed to guess the creature's correct name in the first two days.

On the last night, the queen wandered into the forest to cry alone. As luck would have it, she accidentally stumbled into the creature's lair.

There she heard the little creature say " The queen will never win the game, for Rumpelstiltskin is my name."

When the creature appeared to her on the third day, he was ready to take the child. However, the queen knew better. She revealed his name.

"Rumpelstiltskin, Rumpelstiltskin." Tsk tsk tsk went the click of her tongue. "You have lost the game, for I know your name."

Rumpelstiltskin was engulfed in a fit of rage. He howled and screamed. He vowed that if he could not have her first born he would transform into a big bad wolf and devour other children as a means of revenge.

He then transformed into a wolf and ran away into the forest. Deep in the forest, as he was wandering around, he spotted a girl in a red hooded cape. He howled and gave a sinister grin.

Author's Note

This story was based off of the Grimm Brothers' story Rumpelstiltskin. I followed the original storytelling in my version and only changed some minor details. I had the king command the girl to only spin straw into golden on two occasions instead of three. There were many versions as to how the girl came to find out his name, but I picked the one where she discovered it herself in the forest. In one version, the queen commanded her servant to follow Rumpelstiltskin into the forest to find his real name. I chose not to do that to keep the number of characters low. I did this so that the main focus is between the girl and Rumpelstiltskin. There are also various ways the story could end. But to keep my theme of meshing stories together, I decided to make Rumpelstiltskin the Big Bad Wolf from the story also by the Grimm Brothers known as Little Red Riding Hood. At first, I was going to just tell the story as it was and add more details but I wanted to challenge myself and try to mesh the stories together. Now, I know two stories that I tied in together this time is not as seamless as my first one but nonetheless, I did my best to tie in two well known stories the best I could. In this version, I used the story of Rumpelstiltskin as a prequel to the story of Little Red Ridign Hood. In Grimm's version, the wolf was not killed by the huntsman. In fact, Red Riding Hood and her grandmother were cut out of the wolf's stomach as he slept. The wolf died because rocks that were placed inside his stomach to fill the void where Red and her grandmother once were made him collapse from the weight and die. Of course, I kept my open-ended cliffhanger ending going. Now that is a theme I will carry on in all my stories since I like to keep the reader guessing.

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Source : Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, "Rumpelstilzchen," Kinder- und Hausmärchen, vol. 1 (Göttingen: Verlag der Dieterichschen Buchhandlung, 1857) [Children's and Household Tales -- Grimms' Fairy Tales], no. 55, pp. 281-84.