Revolting Rumpelstiltskin

This week we are covering the eternal engima- Rumpelstiltskin. Where does his name come from? Why does he want to steal a baby? Did he have an affair with the princess and that explains his temper tantrum when she foils his plan?

All will be revealed so listen now!

Transcript

Welcome back to myths in movies. I’m Erin and ——

Thank you for joining us as we dive into our favorite movies and learn about fairies, trolls, any kind of mythical monster or folklore. 

Last week we did more of a monster episode, so I thought we would switch it up and talk about a fairy tale. This is a less popular fairytale, there’s no Disney movie of it. But I think most people would still recognize the name. Ole Rumpelstiltskin.

This name is so hard to type out, I had to make a command within Word to replace his name every time I wrote, because I could not get it. But at least I can say it!

While Disney hasn’t adapted it, it has been made into several movies. There are several German ones and a very weird one released in America in 1995. But it was a huge box office bomb. Made hardly anything. Which makes sense because the plot is so weird. Okay get this- in this film Rumpelstiltskin exclusively feeds on the souls of babies. That is his entire goal in life. 

And you might remember in the fairy tale, there’s a whole thing about spinning gold. It’s gone in this version. 

But that isn’t the only appearance Rumpelstiltskin makes in film. He also appears in Shrek. He and Shrek make a deal and ushers Shrek into a world in which he never rescued Fiona.  And of course Shrek regrets it so he spends most of the movie trying to undo it.

Okay! Now for campfire tale. Get your marshmallows ready and gather around the campfire. 

Once upon a time, there was a poor miller. He had a daughter who he loved dearly, but as she grew up, he worried about how he could support her and her husband. One day, the king was passing through town and the miller saw his chance. He bragged to the king that his daughter could spin straw into gold.  The king liked this idea a little too much and took the girl to his castle. He shut her in the barn with piles and piles of hay. He told her that when he returned in the morning, he expected to see gold or he would kill her.

The poor girl despaired because of course she had no idea how to spin hay into gold. But to her surprise, a little man appeared at the door. She told him all about her problem and he offered to turn the straw into gold in exchange for the pretty necklace she wore. It seemed like a no brainer so she gave the necklace to him and the little man promptly turned all the straw into gold. When the king saw what had happened, he was overjoyed and of course, wanted more. 

But this time the girl had nothing to offer the little man who helped her before. The little man disagreed with that. He wanted her first child when she became queen. And of course, the girl had no choice so she agreed.

When every last bit of straw turned to gold, the king married the girl and they had a child. But the queen had no time to relax with her little one. The little man appeared in the queen’s room and demanded the child. She refused and offered him all the wealth in the world. The little man refused but offered her a deal. If she could guess his name, he wouldn’t take the kid. And he wasn’t unreasonable, he would give her three days to think about it and three chances to guess.

The queen wracked her brain but had no idea. She sent out messengers far and wide asking for help. Luckily, a hunter came to the palace and said he saw a little man in the woods jumping around a great big fire.

And he said this-

Today I'll bake; tomorrow I'll brew,

Then I'll fetch the queen's new child,

It is good that no one knows,

Rumpelstiltskin is my name.

The queen thanked the man. Soon afterward the little man came in and asked, "Now, Madame Queen, what is my name?"

She first asked, "Is your name Kunz?"

"No."

"Is your name Heinz?"

"No."

"Is your name perhaps Rumpelstiltskin?"

"The devil told you that! The devil told you that!" shouted the little man, and with anger he stomped his right foot so hard into the ground that he fell in up to his waist. Then with both hands he took hold of his left foot and ripped himself up the middle in two.

The end.

Okay, okay, I know what you’re thinking. Did she really just say he ripped himself in two? Yes, I did. I’ve checked several translations- they all say the same thing. What I think is happening, this is my best guess- he puts his foot through a floorboard and it gets stuck. Then he pulls his other leg so hard that he ripped himself into two.

I know, I know, why doesn’t he pull the leg out from the floorboard? I don’t know! I think he is just having some sort of unhinged fit, like a small child who can’t control themselves, and he’s pulling on anything in sight. 

I know, I know. It sounds like some sort of deranged SNL sketch where you have the ghost of Christmas anger. Maybe he’s the patron saint of festivus, I don’t know. 

The first edition, where the Grimm brothers tended to stay closer to the original, they said he stomped his foot and ran away angrily. So my guess is that they made it more salacious to sell more copies and hey, I can’t really fault them for that. Give the people what they want! And what they want is violence.

We talked about this on a previous episode where I said that the Grimm’s dialed up the violence and dialed down the sex. For more info, check out the episode called all kinds of fur.

Now there is another version of the tale that the Grimm’s definitely would have edited out. Because it is somewhat sexual in nature and we know those puritan Germans aren’t going to let that stand. 

So fair warning, highly inappropriate for a children’s tale.

Rumpelstiltskin gets so mad, he launches himself at the queen. And gets stuck in her swimsuit area.

And he can’t seem to get out, so the palace soldiers have to come pull him off her.

Now, I had a hard time verifying this but that’s to be expected. Nearly every source is dominated by the Grimm’s brothers version so it’s very hard to wade through and find anything different. Several different sources mentioned the story but did provide the original source, so if you have it, listeners, please let me know. 

It might be hard to believe that Rumpelstiltskin could be so crude but the more I researched, the more I found that Rumpelstiltskin started out with some of the crudest stories around at the time.   

So let’s get into it. This is a very popular European tale. It has a million different versions including one called Tom Tit Tot.

Which is quite an unusual name. Although perhaps not as unique as the Italian version which is seven little pork rinds.

So let me give you the origins of Rumpelstiltskin and then your reward will be to hear other versions.

The earliest we hear that name is the 16th century with a collection of stories from a guy named Johann Fischert. He was a scholar and humorist and he wrote a bunch of stories, including one where children play a specific game. It’s like duck duck goose, but instead one of the children plays a goblin. 

And since we have a few international listeners, I will explain the rules of duck duck goose. Basically someone walks around a circle, tapping everyone on the head saying duck. Then they choose someone to be goose. The goose then has to chase the picker before the picker gets to their seat, otherwise they are now it.

It was one of my favorites as a child. 

It is believed that Rumpelstiltskin, like the name, originates from this game in his book. The author uses the name Rumpeln, which in old fashioned German means to make a noise.

Which sounds an awful lot like the English world, rattle. I know, I know I’m blowing your mind.

Now the world Stilzer also has a meaning. And it’s definition is, an old man with a limp. 

I have to say- German is so interesting. Because they have these words that mean such specific things. In English, you need four or five words to get your meaning across and apparently in German, you only need one. 

I admire their ability to smash two words together, like schadenfreude. Schaden means misfortune, freude means joy. Smash them together, a person who derives joy from other’s misfortunes.

So, based off of smashing the two words together, we can guess that Rumpelstiltskin is a noisy goblin with a limp. 

In this duck duck goose game, kids would pretend to the goblin and they would rattle pots and pans.

Which I am sure thrilled their parents. Although, it sounds super fun. 

And just for a little more etymology- Rumpelstiltskin is similar to the word rumpelgeist which means a noisy spirit, which is quite similar to poltergeist which means mischievous ghost.

Back to the writer who we think originally included Rumpelstiltskin. It turns out that this guy really liked sort of bawdy jokes. In fact- that book he wrote is a German adaptation of a French tale. And the French story is also full of violence, scatological humor and just a lot of crude jokes.

So this is the context into which Rumpelstiltskin is inserted. Now, in these early tales, no one is really a good character. They all lie and cheat, the princess is not a princess but a lazy peasant. So when the evil little goblin provides help, the terrible price that he wants is actually consistent with the world that the story has built.

We are sort of used to a perfect protagonist, especially in Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast. These women, technically girls, are exceptionally perfect. But there are other tales were the protagonist is kind of a jerk.

I think that speaks to intention. A lot of Grimm’s tales were infused with German values and made to be instructional. Others were meant more for entertainment.

So Taylor Swift isn’t the only anti-hero! I know, I know, a terrible joke.

Anyway- that is a small explanation for where the name comes from. Let’s get into the different types of tales and where they come from.

Similar to most fairy tale characters, Rumpelstiltskin is quite a well traveled gent. He first pops up in a Italian tale that is published in the 17th century.

The author’s name is Giambattista Basile. He was a poet and a courtier to several different Italian nobles. He publishes this book with like fifty different tales.

And of course, the Grimm brothers borrowed a bunch of his stories for their own book. Maybe you’ve heard of some of these- Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Rapunzel and sleeping Beauty? Those are all covered in the book. 

So- while Rumpelstiltskin’s story is mentioned, his actual name is not. And I know, I know, his name is an important part of the story. But the story is identical. I’ll prove it. 

It is called seven little pork rinds.

And it goes like this- 

A lazy girl eats up all the bacon and her mom is pissed. She beats her and a merchant sees. He asks why is she doing this and the mother says she works too hard and is ruining her health. The merchant decides to marry her on the spot. He goes on a trip and leaves his wife with a spinning wheel. She attempts to spin but just flicks a passerby with water. Three fairies watch and are so amused, they agree to spin for her.

When the merchant comes back, he is impressed by her work but she claims to be ill. The merchant then decides she should never spin anymore because her mother was right, all that work ruined her health.

Which might be one of my most favorite tales. I mean come on, a girl manages to convince her husband that chores that ruined her health. I would love to get out of chores and this seems like a way that doesn’t involve me breaking my leg.

So in the course of researching this, I wanted to know if spinning is difficult. In Rumpelstiltskin’s story we can see that it is difficult because she’s spinning straw into gold which is impossible. But in this story, she just spins regular wool into yarn. 

So I did a little research. I spent longer than I planned watching people spin wool or cotton on old fashioned wheels. And my consensus is no. I would much rather spin than do laundry the old fashioned way by boiling water and using a washboard. Or cooking meals. Doing that the old way is hard.

I saw a documentary about the FLDS which I have always been fascinated by because a family in the religion lived about two blocks from my house. And in their community that straddles the border between Arizona and Utah, they work like little house on the prairie- totally self sufficient but they do have cars. Which is weird to me because this seems like the perfect place to have a bike. It’s only 3 miles square and totally flat. Perfect for bikes. 

Anyway- spinning seems like something they would do. I watched several videos on youtube, including an irish master spinner, who is in fact known as a spinster. He said the hard part is getting the fibers smooth to feed into the spinner.

I also looked into what would happen if you fed the spinning wheel straw. Basically nothing. It will spin but you can’t make anything like a sweater out of it. It will feel terrible and it will break almost immediately.

Moving on-

This story, by the Italian guy, forms the framework of the Rumpelstiltskin story and then was later adapted into the German canon. And they plugged in their very cool name, Rumpelstiltskin. 

It was so popular, other countries borrowed the same story. 

Like Scotland. There the story is called Whuppity Stoorie. 

A single mother has only one pig to provide for her family. The pig is pregnant which would be good news, except, the pig is dying. A fairy appears and offers to help in exchange for her first born. The woman agrees and the fairy heals the pig. Under fairy law, the fairy has to wait for 3 days until she can take the child and the woman can only stop her if she guesses her name. 

The fairy sings a song about her name in the forest and the woman overhears. And gets to keep her baby. Which I have to say- I really like that she has to abide by fairy law. There’s no shortcuts, no paperwork. This is the Leslie Knope of fairies.

This story is kind of unusual in that no spinning is involved at all. Usually the Scandinavian ones are the furthest away from the English or German tales and even they talk about spinning gold out of straw and clay.

Which seems way messier. I feel like clay would just be a nightmare to feed through your fingers.

Anyway- the Scottish have their own and so do the British!

The English tale is called Tom Tit Tot. In this one, the girl is very lazy and eats five of her mom’s pies in one go. In fairy tale world, that is gluttonous.

Which I don’t know how big the pies are. If they’re family size, I’m very impressed.

Anyway- to cover up what her lazy daughter did, the mom pretends she can spin straw into gold.

Which, if I were her, I would just not say anything and then I wouldn’t even have to invent some stupid lie. But whatever.

Anyway- the king overhears. And then basically the same plot as the German one. However, this time the imp’s name is Tom Tit Tot. Which I would never guess even if you gave me a million guesses.

Which is the entire point of story. I know, I know. It just takes me a while. 

So this time, he has a little rhyme and it goes like this:

Nimmy Nimmy Not, Your name’s Tom Tit Tot.

Which is so hilarious to me. I mean, it saves a very underwhelming story. 

I honestly think that if you turned in Rumpelstiltskin as a story in English class, you would get maybe a C. It’s full of plot holes, there’s little character development, etc.

Which may not be fair. I’m unduly hard on fairy tales. They do a good job of explaining story structure at a rudimentary level. It is so clear that is almost impossible not to understand. It’s basically ABC’s of stories. You have to learn them before you graduate to more complicated stories.

And of course, the obvious point- these are stories that have been told orally for centuries before they were made into books. And oral stories have to be short in order to tell them well.

So now that I’ve defended fairy tales, let’s move on. I’ve mentioned primarily European countries but it does venture outside of Europe. 

There’s a variant in the middle east, one in South America and an Asian one. There’s also a Russian one. It is similar to the Italian version in that a merchant intervenes when the mother is beating her with a stone.

Which is quite a violent opening to a story. 

In the Russian one, the little old man wants her to guess his name and what his shoes are made of.

His name is

(Kinkach Martinko)

And his shoes are made of dogskin. Which I am hoping means it’s made of that fish called a dogfish. Or something, I don’t know.

Moving right along- 

Let me tell you, dear listener, my favorite story. It’s similar to Seven Little Pork Rinds and is called either the three spinners or the lazy beauty and her aunts.

So this girl named Sarah refuses to spin. Her mother beats her for it and the queen stops and asks why. The mother says oh it’s because she ran out of things to spin, she’s just that good.

The queen takes her to the castle and shows her a room filled with flax. If she can spin it all in three days, she will be rewarded by marrying her eldest son. But Sarah is like, eh, or I could just sit here. The queen comes back and thinks well, what the hell. Sarah says oh, I was just too homesick. But she knows that she can’t use that excuse anymore.

Luckily, three women appear in the room that night. One has a swollen foot, the other has an overgrown thump and then the third has a drooping lip. They feel sorry for Sarah and offer to spin all the flax if she will invite them to the wedding and introduce her as her aunts. Sarah says hell yes and in the morning, all the flax is spun.

Sure enough, Sarah gets married and does introduce the aunts to the queen and king. The king asks why they are deformed and the aunts explain that it was because they spent years spinning. The foot from treading, the lip from liking and the thumb from twisting thread. The king immediately forbids Sarah from ever spinning again.

Which is similar to seven little pork rinds, where you get out of chores by claiming it ruins your health. 

But I love the fairies here. They were like, no, you know what? She should not have to spin if she doesn’t want to.

Alright, now that I’ve told you all about the other versions of old Rumpelstiltskin, let’s talk about the most well known one. The German one. 

So like many of the Grimm’s tales, this one was told to the brothers by Lisette and Dortchen Wild. Aka Wilhelm Grimm’s wife.

And honestly, they should be the authors of the book. Or at the very least, put their name on the bottom of the cover. They get so little recognition. 

Speaking of not getting your name recognized, I noticed that in a bunch of the stories, Rumpelstiltskin is the only character with a name. except that Irish one. I find that very interesting. These are stories that equate power with knowing one’s name, they have none.

But of course, that’s pretty common for Grimm’s tales. 

Most are short and only one character, usually the protagonist has a name. So you could argue that Rumpelstiltskin is really main the character, but I don’t think so. He’s more of the antagonist.

I want to talk about the whole ripping himself in half thing. So is it symbolic?

I think so. Rumpelstiltskin presents himself as a helpful guy, like I can make all your dreams come true, I just want your necklace. Then he turns evil and wants the kid. He crows about how smart he is and then has a full temper tantrum when it doesn’t go his way. So he is a dual image- one side good and the other bad.

Further- he presents himself as fate. He literally masters the spinning wheel and then does it three times, which to me heavily references the greek three fates. One spins the thread, one weaves and then the last cuts the thread.

And then he offers her a way to change her fate.  Or tempt her, by committing the sin of giving away her child.

All of which are a very fairy like thing to do. They are always up to mischief but in a darker context. To me, mischief is like mismatching someone’s socks. They steal people’s children which is so not mischievous but it’s always presented that way in fairy tales. 

Although to be fair to fairytales, folklore creatures are dramatic and their actions are oversized. 

Okay- now to the most bananas theory I have heard about Rumpelstiltskin. Ready guys?

The interpretation goes like this- Rumpelstiltskin is actually her lover. They make gold together in the barn which is a euphemism of course.

Gettit? Gettit?

Then Rumpelstiltskin wants the child which is probably his instead of letting the king have his child.

The only thing that is confusing is the moral of the story. What is it? I guess that it’s only once she knows the imp’s fate can she control her own fate. So make sure you have all the information?

Perhaps it’s a warning for women who are seduced by men who promise the world but never show you their true self.

Which kind of makes sense. Pinocchio was a warning for Italian farmers who were venturing into the city for the first time. They were very naïve and easily tricked, so perhaps a similar thing is happening here. Women who are taught nothing venture into the world and tricked by sweet words from men who don’t actually care about them.

I just watched a documentary about the FLDS so this is one my mind. I remember watching the story of a girl who escaped and her sister came too because she didn’t want her to be alone. But of course they knew nothing about relationships and had no sex education. So the sister became pregnant and the guy totally abandoned her. So sad. 

So the moral in Rumpelstiltskin is a little bit confusing. I had to think about it for awhile. I know that some stories don’t have one, but I still like to wonder. 

Some tales are just for entertainment. This feels like an entertainment story with a dash of don’t pretend to be better than you are, don’t lie, etc. It’s definitely not prescriptive like Cinderella. But don’t lie sounds right. or don’t make false promises.

Some of the stories seem to warn against idleness or laziness. Like don’t be like this girl who won’t even spin yarn. Or the girl who eats all of her mother’s pork pies.

Another moral could be that transformation, like a girl to a queen, comes with a price. Or if we are going dark, social mobility is only achievable thru magic.

Hope not.

Okay, we covered the origins of Rumpelstiltskin, the European versions, and then the interpretation of his story. And all the possible morals I could come up with. Tell me what you think! Do you have a better moral or perhaps just disagree with me? Let me know!

S: Answer

Erin: listeners! Tell us what you think! Tweet at us over at mythsinmovies or email as at mythsinmovies@gmail.com. 

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And goodbye!