Rumpelstiltskin

"Rumpel" redirects here. For the municipality in Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, see Rümpel.
Rumpelstiltskin

Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book, (1889)
Folk tale
Name Rumpelstiltskin
Also known as Tom Tit Tot
Päronskaft
Repelsteeltje
Data
Aarne-Thompson grouping 500
Country Germany
England
Sweden
Netherlands
Published in Grimm's Fairy Tales
English Fairy Tales

Rumpelstiltskin is a fairy tale popularly associated with Germany (where he is known as Rumpelstilzchen). The tale was one collected by the Brothers Grimm in the 1812 edition of Children's and Household Tales. According to researchers at Durham University and the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, the story originated around 4,000 years ago.[1]

Plot

In order to make himself appear superior, a miller lies to the king, telling him that his daughter can spin straw into gold. (Some versions make the miller's daughter blonde and describe the "straw-into-gold" claim as a careless boast the miller makes about the way his daughter's straw-like blonde hair takes on a gold-like lustre when sunshine strikes it.) The king calls for the girl, shuts her in a tower room filled with straw and a spinning wheel, and demands she spin the straw into gold by morning or he will cut off her head (other versions have the king threatening to lock her up in a dungeon forever). When she has given up all hope, an imp-like creature appears in the room and spins the straw into gold in return for her necklace (since he only comes to people seeking a deal/trade). When next morning the king takes the girl to a larger room filled with straw to repeat the feat, the imp spins in return for the girl's ring. On the third day, when the girl has been taken to an even larger room filled with straw and told by the king that he will marry her if she can fill this room with gold or execute her if she cannot, the girl has nothing left with which to pay the strange creature. He extracts from her a promise that she will give him her firstborn child and so he spins the straw into gold a final time.

The king keeps his promise to marry the miller's daughter. But when their first child is born, the imp returns to claim his payment: "Now give me what you promised." She offers him all the wealth she has to keep the child but the imp has no interest in her riches. He finally consents to give up his claim to the child if she can guess his name within three days. Her many guesses fail, but before the final night, she wanders into the woods (some versions she sent a servant in the woods instead of going herself to keep the king's suspicions at bay) searching for him and comes across his remote mountain cottage and watches, unseen, as he hops about his fire and sings. In his song's lyrics, "tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll go to the king's house, nobody knows my name, I'm called 'Rumpelstiltskin'", he reveals his name. Some versions have the imp limiting the number of daily guesses to three and hence the total number of guesses allowed to a maximum of nine.

When the imp comes to the queen on the third day, after first feigning ignorance, she reveals his name, Rumpelstiltskin, and he loses his temper and their bargain. (Versions vary about whether he accuses the devil or witches of having revealed his name to the queen.) In the 1812 edition of the Brothers Grimm tales, Rumpelstiltskin then "ran away angrily, and never came back". The ending was revised in a 1857 edition to a more gruesome ending wherein Rumpelstiltskin "in his rage drove his right foot so far into the ground that it sank in up to his waist; then in a passion he seized the left foot with both hands and tore himself in two". Other versions have Rumpelstiltskin driving his right foot so far into the ground that he creates a chasm and falls into it, never to be seen again. In the oral version originally collected by the Brothers Grimm, Rumpelstiltskin flies out of the window on a cooking ladle.

Variants

Some versions of the story hold that Rumplestiltskin was in fact once a beautiful princess, who became an imp after thinking one too many grumpy thoughts, eventually she was eaten and then later rescued by the fair Prince Biein. The same story pattern appears in numerous other cultures: Tom Tit Tot in England (from English Tales by Joseph Jacobs), Whuppity Stoorie in Scotland (from Robert Chambers's Popular Rhymes of Scotland), Gilitrutt in Iceland, Joaidane جعيدان in Arabic (he who talks too much), Khlamushka Хламушка (junker) in Russia, Rumplcimprcampr, Rampelník or Martin Zvonek in the Czech Republic, Martinko Klingáč in Slovakia, Ruidoquedito (meaning "little noise") in South America, Pancimanci in Hungary (from A Csodafurulya by Kolozsvari Grandpierre Emil), Cvilidreta (whine-screamer) in Serbia and Croatia, Tremotino in Italy, Ootz-li Gootz-li עוּץ-לי גוּץ-לי in Israel (a compact and rhymy touch to the original sentence and meaning of the story, "My adviser my midget"), Daiku to Oniroku (daiku means "a carpenter", to means "and", and Oniroku is an ogre's name), "大工と鬼六" in Japan and "Myrmidon" in France.

These tales are Aarne-Thompson type 500, The Name of the Helper.[2]

Another of the Grimm's tales revolves about a girl trapped by false claims about her spinning abilities, The Three Spinners. However, the three women who assist that girl do not demand her firstborn, but instead ask that she invite them to her wedding and say that they are relatives of hers. She complies, and when the three appear at the wedding, amazing the king with their ugliness, they tell the king that their various deformities (an overgrown thumb in one, a pendulous lip in the second, an enormous foot in the third) are the result of their years of spinning. The horrified king decrees that the bride will spin no more. In contrast to Rumpelstiltskin's self-seeking, therefore, these helpers ask only the "payment" of extending their benevolence to the heroine, and ensure that she will not need their help again. In one Italian variant, the girl must discover their names, as with Rumpelstiltskin, but not for the same reason: she must use their names to invite them, and she has forgotten them.

Name origins

The name Rumpelstilzchen in German means literally "little rattle stilt". (A stilt is a post or pole which provides support for a structure.) A rumpelstilt or rumpelstilz was the name of a type of goblin, also called a pophart or poppart that makes noises by rattling posts and rapping on planks. The meaning is similar to rumpelgeist ("rattle ghost") or poltergeist, a mischievous spirit that clatters and moves household objects. (Other related concepts are mummarts or boggarts and hobs that are mischievous household spirits that disguise themselves.) The ending -chen is a German diminutive cognate to English -kin.

The earliest known mention of Rumpelstiltskin occurs in Johann Fischart's Geschichtklitterung, or Gargantua of 1577 (a loose adaptation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel) which refers to an "amusement" for children named "Rumpele stilt or the Poppart".

Names used in translations

Translations of the original Grimm fairy tale (KHM 55) into various languages have generally substituted different names for the dwarf, whose name is Rumpelstilzchen in the original.

For some languages, a name was chosen that comes close in sound to the German name: Rumpelstiltskin in English, Repelsteeltje in Dutch, Rumpelstichen in Portuguese, and "Ram-Khel-Tilak_Singh" in Bengali. He is known as Päronskaft in Swedish[3] (literally "Pear stalk"); the sense of stilt or stalk of the second part is retained. In Danish and Norwegian, he is known as Rumleskaft (literally "Rumble shank"). In other languages an entirely different and generally meaningless name was selected, such as Barbichu, Broumpristoche, Grigrigredinmenufretin, Outroupistache, Tracassin or Perlimpinpin in various translations to French. Turkish translations use "Hariparibuşki Baripinpon" (doesn't mean anything. It was named just because the name was complicated.) Polish translations use Titelitury or Rumpelsztyk, Greek translations use Κουτσοκαλιγέρης, Czech translations use Rumplcimprcampr or Rampelník, Slovak translations use Martinko Klingáč, and Finnish ones Tittelintuure. Italian has Tremotino (which loosely means Little Earthquake), Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian Cvilidreta, and Hebrew עוץ לי גוץ לי (Ootz-li Gootz-li), a name chosen by the poet Avraham Shlonsky when using the fairy tale as the basis of a children's musical, now a classic among Hebrew children's plays. In Spain, the character's name is Rumpelstinski and Rumpelestíjeles.

Appearances in media

Cover of Classics Illustrated Junior issue 512

Literature

Comics

Music

Television

Film

Colorized still from the American film Rumpelstiltskin (1915)

Games

Psychology

References

  1. BBC. "Fairy tale origins thousands of years old, researchers say". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
  2. "Name of the Helper". D. L. Ashliman. Retrieved 2015-11-29.
  3. Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (2008). Bröderna Grimms sagovärld (in Swedish). Bonnier Carlsen. p. 72. ISBN 91-638-2435-3.
  4. Elavsky, Cindy (18 September 2014). "Q and A: Week of Sept. 18". Retrieved 18 September 2014.
  5. "Transformations - Anne Sexton - Google Books". Books.google.com. Retrieved 2015-09-26.
  6. http://www.koffer-lahr.de/7.html
  7. This comes from a section of Schumann's journals that is difficult to find and has not been translated into English. See "Rapunzel in Music" and "Sleeping Beauty in Music" for more corroboration.
  8. Roots, Kimberly (2013-03-26). "Grimm Season 2 Spoilers — Rumplestiltskin Pages from Nick’s Books". TVLine. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  9. "Rumpelstiltskin". YouTube. 2009-03-13. Retrieved 2015-09-26.
  10. "Rumpelstilzchen | rbb Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg". Rbb-online.de. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  11. "Rumpelstiltskin (1955)". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  12. "Rumpelstilzchen | rbb Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg". Rbb-online.de. Retrieved 2014-06-28.

External links

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