A Roll in the Hay

By the side of a wood, in a country a long way off, ran a fine stream of water; and upon the stream there stood a mill. The miller's house was close by, and the miller, you must know, had a very beautiful daughter. She was, moreover, very shrewd and clever; and the miller was so proud of her, that he one day told the king of the land, who used to come and hunt in the wood, that his daughter could spin gold out of straw. Everyone in the town knew the miller was no more than a drunkard, who loved his daughter perhaps more than he should, and missed the wife who had passed on in childbirth. They were used to his outrageous boasts, and knew that he almost certainly believed them, somewhere in his haze, for the girl took good care of him and he thought she walked on water. But the king did not know any of this, and thought only of the gold. When he heard the miller's boast his greediness was aroused like like the cock of a pubescent page, and he sent for the straw-spinning maiden to be brought before him.

Trembling, the girl knelt before the liege. The king, staring down from his throne onto her strawberry-yellow hair felt passion leap into his loins. What luck! Not only was the girl as sumptuous as cold plum in July, but she could spin straw into gold! Blinded by desire and greed, he led her to a musty castle chamber. A great heap of straw towered in one corner, in the other was a spinning-wheel. The king, ignoring the look of bewilderment on the girl's face, placed a hand on her shoulder. 'All this must be spun into gold before morning, as you love your life.' The fleeting contact with the maiden's milky flesh nearly sent him to the brink; trying to hide the growing bulge beneath his velvet leggings, the king strode from the room, ignoring the maiden's pleas that she could do no such thing as spin straw into gold. The chamber door locked, and the girl was alone with the straw.

She sat down in one corner of the room, and began to bewail her hard fate; when on a sudden the door opened, and a droll-looking little man hobbled in, and said, 'Good morrow to you, my good lass; what are you weeping for?' 'Alas!' said she, 'I must spin this straw into gold, and I know not how.' 'What will you give me,' said the hobgoblin, 'to do it for you?' He eyed her neck. 'My necklace,' replied the maiden. A token from when her father's business was good, before he fell apart. She could not remember a time when she had not had its weight around her neck like a halter. He took her at her word, and sat himself down to the wheel, and whistled and sang:

'Round about, round about,
Lo and behold!
Reel away, reel away,
Straw into gold!'

And round about the wheel went merrily; the work was quickly done, and the straw was all spun into gold.

The hobgloblin, with the necklace in his pocket disappeared.

Meanwhile, at the castle, the girl awoke to the sound of the king and his guardsmen knocking on her door. When the king entered and saw the gold, he was astonished and greatly pleased. The sight of the glimmering piles and the sleeping maiden, the milky white flesh of her breasts rising above the neckline of her dress, he felt a nearly irrepressible urge to take the girl among the piles of gold. But for all his self absorption, the king was crafty. Better to hold out longer, he reasoned and see what this strange nymph was capable of, before ravaging her and throwing her back into the squalor of the common folk. The king ordered another chamber, this one thrice the size of the first, prepared with straw and once again locked the sobbing maiden within.

Once again, the girl knew not what to do, and sat down to weep, but not before noting his majesty's dark good looks and strong, broad chest, attributes which had escaped her notice in their first, terrifying meeting. "Nonsense, such thoughts are treasonous," the girl thought, praying that the sudden hardening of her nipples was related to the temperature, but the room was warm. "I've got to focus on the task at hand. How ever will I spin this straw into gold." Overwhelmed once more, the girl lay in the straw and wept. Before long, the stringy little dwarf man appeared in the room. 'What will you give me to do your task?' He croaked. 'The ring on my finger,' said she. The ring was the last vestige of her long dead mother that the miller hadn't gambled away for booze money. She let it go without much thought. Survival meant more to her than a band of gold. So her little friend took the ring, and began to work at the wheel again. All night he spun and sang while strange, sweet images that left her sweaty and antsy danced through the girl's sleeping head.

'Round about, round about,
Lo and behold!
Reel away, reel away,
Straw into gold!'

The next morning, the king was greatly delighted to see, once again, a glittering mound of treasure in the center of the room. 'Why stop now?' He thought. He took the miller's daughter to a yet another chamber with yet more straw. 'Spin all this into gold tonight; and you shall be my queen.' Queen? The girl's breath caught in her throat. The king observed her reaction with delight, his mind already leaping ahead to the marriage night, his loins near trembling with anticipation. As soon as she was alone, the strange little man came in, and said, 'What will you give me to spin gold for you this third time?' 'I have nothing left,' said she. His heart shook with excitement. 'Then say you will give me,' he said, 'the first little child that you may have when you are queen.'

'That may never be,' thought the miller's daughter, desperately, and as she knew no other way to get her task done, she said she would do what he asked. The little man delightedly spun his way through the night. When the king returned in the morning and discovered, once again, the sparkling treasure, he ordered the palace chaplain brought forth immediately and married the girl on the spot. Then, dismissing the few courtiers that could be assembled on such short notice, the king finally put his throbbing manhood to rest within the sweet, wet cave of her milky body. And there, with the golden treasure as her only witness, the maiden partook of the kingly carnal delights and doused the burning of her loins in his liquid.

Nine months later, the newly anointed queen brought forth a son. Under the sweet influence of post partem hormones, the queen completely forgot her long given promise to the man who spun straw into gold. She loved the boy dearly and never let him out of her sight.

But one day while the queen was sitting with her young son in the nursery, the strange man suddenly appeared in the chamber beside her. In an instant, the past all came rushing back to her and the regal lady cursed the innocent stupidity of her youth. Clutching the baby tightly she begged him to go, and said she would give him all the wealth of the kingdom if he would allow her her so. At last, the poor woman's tears softened the gnarled old man, and he said, 'I will give you three days' time, and if during that time you can tell me my name, you shall keep your child.'

The queen eagerly agreed and immediately called for the formation of a kingdom wide commission on child names, under the pretense of thinking up a name for the new prince. By morning, the queen's loyal servants brought her thousands of scrolls of male names from every corner of the land. The next day when the little man came, and she methodically read of each name one by one. TIMOTHY, ICHABOD, BENJAMIN, JEREMIAH, but to every one of them the wrinkly little man replied, ' I am sorry, madam, but that is not my name.'

The second day she called on the commissions to submit more names, even the comical and outrageous. When the man returned, the queen was confident. BANDY-LEGS, HUNCHBACK, CROOK-SHANKS, and so on for six hours, the queen read. But still the man replied, 'I am sorry, madam, but that is not my name.'

The third day one of the messengers came back, and said, 'I have travelled two days without hearing of any other names; but yesterday, as I was climbing a high hill, among the trees of the forest where the fox and the hare bid each other good night, I saw a little hut; and before the hut burnt a fire; and round about the fire a funny little dwarf was dancing upon one leg, and singing:

'"Merrily the feast I'll make.
Today I'll brew, tomorrow bake;
Merrily I'll dance and sing,
For next day will a stranger bring.
Little does my lady dream
Rumpelstiltskin is my name!"'

When the queen heard this she jumped for joy. For once, she would not be manhandled into some deed against her will. The messenger smiled with her, taking in the womanly curves that had replaced her former slenderness after her pregnancy. He wondered if this latest coup might somehow be jockeyed into a favorable situation for him.

That afternoon, the man returned, confident and swaggering. The queen sat upon her throne, and once again began the name exchange. 'Now, lady,' the man cackled, 'Tell me my name or as God is my witness I shall take your son with me to live in the woods. ' 'Is it JOHN?' the queen began with a sly smile. 'I am sorry, madam, but that is not my name.' 'Is it
TOM?' 'I am sorry, madam, but that is not my name!' 'Is it JEMMY?' 'I am sorry, madame, but that is not my name.' 'Can your name be RUMPELSTILTSKIN?' said the lady grinning.'

Some witch told you that!--some witch told you that!' cried the little man, stamping his tiny feet upon the marble floor, his cane waving wildly. His little face burning red with a rage that only grew more intense as the queen crowed in delight. As quickly and mysteriously as he had come into his life, Rumpelstiltskin left it on a broomstick.

The queen never told her husband the king of what had transpired. The royal couple did not bare any more children, though that was certainly not for lack of enthusiastic trying. Despite their small household, they lived happily ever after.

The end.

source text from:
*The Project Gutenberg Etext Fairy Tales, by the Grimm Brothers*
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Brothers Grimm
April, 2001 [Etext #2591]