Rumpelstiltskin
Rumpelstiltskin is the title character of an 1857 fairy tale (called Rumpelstilzchen in the original German) by the Grimm Brothers.
In the tale, a miller lies to the king that his daughter can spin straw into gold. The king demands that the miller must prove his story, or die. Miraculously, a dwarf appears in the daughter's room and spins straw into gold for her, in return for a promise that the girl's first-born child will become his. The king is so impressed that he marries the girl, and when their first child is born, the dwarf returns to claim his payment. The girl begs the dwarf to let her keep the child, and he agrees on the condition that she guess his name. At first she fails, but one day, her messenger overhears the dwarf speaking his own name, Rumpelstilstkin. The dwarf loses his bargain and kills himself in a rage.
Rumpelstilskin is known by a variety of names in a number of other languages:
- Dutch: Repelsteeltje
- French: Grigrigredinmenufretin
- English: Tom Tit Tot (from English Fairy Tales, collected & edited by Joseph Jacobs, 1884)
The name is believed to derive from an old children's game called Rumpele stilt oder der Poppart, which was mentioned in Johann Fischart's Geschichtklitterung, or Gargantua of 1577, a loose adaptation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel.