Rumpelstiltskin

"Rumpelstiltskin" ( ; german: Rumpelstilzchen) is a German fairy tale. It was collected by the Brothers Grimm in the 1812 edition of '' Children's and Household Tales''. The story is about a little imp who spins straw into gold in exchange for a girl's firstborn child.

Plot

In order to appear superior, a miller brags to the king and people of the kingdom he lives in by claiming 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 blond hair takes on a gold-like lustre when sunshine strikes it. The king calls for the girl, locks her up in a tower room filled with straw and a spinning wheel, and demands she spin the straw into gold by morning or he will have her killed.Other versions have the king threatening to lock her up in a dungeon forever, or to punish her father for lying. When she has given up all hope, a little imp-like man appears in the room and spins the straw into gold in return for her necklace. The next morning the king takes the girl to a larger room filled with straw to repeat the feat, the imp once again 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 she can pay the strange creature. He extracts a promise from her that she will give him her firstborn child, and so he spins the straw into gold a final time.In some versions, the imp appears and begins to turn the straw into gold, paying no heed to the girl's protests that she has nothing to pay him with; when he finishes the task, he states that the price is her first child, and the horrified girl objects because she never agreed to this arrangement.

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. She offers him all the wealth she has to keep the child, but the imp has no interest in her riches. He finally agrees to give up his claim to the child if she can guess the imp's name within three days.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.

The queen's many guesses fail. But before the final night, she wanders into the woodsIn some versions, she sends a servant into the woods instead of going herself, in order 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—"tonight tonight, my plans I make, tomorrow tomorrow, the baby I take. The queen will never win the game, for Rumpelstiltskin is my name"—he reveals his name.

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 at the loss of 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 an 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.

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History

According to researchers at Durham University and the NOVA University Lisbon, the origins of the story can be traced back to around 4,000 years ago. A possible early literary reference to the tale appears in Dio of Halicarnassus' ''Roman Antiquities'', in the 1st century CE.

Variants

The same story pattern appears in numerous other cultures: ''Tom Tit Tot'' in United Kingdom (from ''English Fairy Tales'', 1890, by Joseph Jacobs);
The Lazy Beauty and her Aunts
' in Ireland (from '' The Fireside Stories of Ireland'', 1870 by Patrick Kennedy); ''Whuppity Stoorie'' in Scotland (from Robert Chambers's ''Popular Rhymes of Scotland'', 1826); ''Gilitrutt'' in Iceland; جعيدان (''Joaidane'' "He who talks too much") in Arabic; Хламушка (''Khlamushka'' "Junker") in Russia; ''Rumplcimprcampr'', ''Rampelník'' or ''Martin Zvonek'' in the Czech Republic; ''Martinko Klingáč'' in Slovakia; "Cvilidreta" in Croatia; ''Ruidoquedito'' ("Little noise") in South America; ''Pancimanci'' in Hungary (from 1862 folktale collection by László Arany); ''Daiku to Oniroku'' (大工と鬼六 "The carpenter and the ogre") in Japan and ''Myrmidon'' in France.

An earlier literary variant in French was penned by Mme. L'Héritier, titled ''Ricdin-Ricdon''. A version of it exists in the compilation ''Le Cabinet des Fées'', Vol. XII. pp. 125-131.

The Cornish tale of Duffy and the Devil plays out an essentially similar plot featuring a "devil" named ''Terry-top''.

All these tales are classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as tale type ATU 500, "The Name of the Supernatural Helper". According to scholarship, it is popular in "Denmark, Finland, Germany and Ireland".

Name

The name ''Rumpelstilzchen'' in German (IPA: ) means literally "little rattle stilt", a ''stilt'' being a post or pole that provides support for a structure. A ''rumpelstilt'' or ''rumpelstilz'' was consequently 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'', which are mischievous household spirits that disguise themselves.) The ending ''-chen'' is a German diminutive cognate to English ''-kin''.

The name is believed to be derived from Johann Fischart's ''Geschichtklitterung, or Gargantua'' of 1577 (a loose adaptation of Rabelais' ''Gargantua and Pantagruel''), which refers to an "amusement" for children, a children's game named "Rumpele stilt oder der Poppart".

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''. For some languages, a name was chosen that comes close in sound to the German name: ''Rumpelstiltskin'' or ''Rumplestiltskin'' in English, ''Repelsteeltje'' in Dutch, ''Rumpelstichen'' in Brazilian Portuguese, ''Rumpelstinski'', ''Rumpelestíjeles'', ''Trasgolisto'', ''Jasil el Trasgu'', ''Barabay'', ''Rompelimbrá'', ''Barrabás'', ''Ruidoquedito'', ''Rompeltisquillo'', ''Tiribilitín'', ''Tremolín'', ''El enano saltarín'' y ''el duende saltarín'' in Spanish, ''Rumplcimprcampr'' or ''Rampelník'' in Czech. In Japanese, it is called ルンペルシュティルツキン (''Runperushutirutsukin''). Russian might have the most accomplished imitation of the German name with Румпельшти́льцхен (''Rumpelʹshtílʹtskhen'').

In other languages, the name was translated in a poetic and approximate way. Thus ''Rumpelstilzchen'' is known as ''Päronskaft'' (literally "Pear-stalk") in Swedish, where the sense of ''stilt'' or ''stalk'' of the second part is retained.

Slovak translations use ''Martinko Klingáč''. Polish translations use ''Titelitury'' (or ''Rumpelsztyk'') and Finnish ones ''Tittelintuure'', ''Rompanruoja'' or ''Hopskukkeli''. The Hungarian name is Tűzmanócska and in Serbo-Croatian ''Cvilidreta'' ("Whine-screamer"). The Slovenian translation uses "Špicparkeljc" (pointy-hoof). For Hebrew the poet Avraham Shlonsky composed the name (''Ootz-li Gootz-li'', a compact and rhymy touch to the original sentence and meaning of the story, "My adviser my midget"), when using the fairy tale as the basis of a children's musical, now a classic among Hebrew children's plays. Greek translations have used Ρουμπελστίλτσκιν (from the English) or Κουτσοκαλιγέρης (''Koutsokaliyéris''), which could figure as a Greek surname, formed with the particle κούτσο- (''koútso-'' "limping"), and is perhaps derived from the Hebrew name. In Italian, the creature is usually called ''Tremotino'', which is probably formed from the world ''tremoto'', which means "earthquake" in Tuscan dialect, and the suffix "-ino", which generally indicates a small and/or sly character. The first Italian edition of the fables was published in 1897, and the books in those years were all written in Tuscan. Urdu

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