Roll straw into gold? It was
Unbelievable the things Daddy could
Make up to cover his gambling debts.
Pawning her necklace (if he hadn't met Daddy, he might have married her)
Exchanging the memory to buy back family pride Daddy
Lost in a pub.
Sleeping on her bed of stone, she listened to the hobgoblin's song.
There was something of longing and freedom in his nameless voice.
Intriguing, really, his desire to work without motive of reputation.
Loosen the family ring from her bony finger, then, and
Take off with it the weight of a Daddy's little girl
Strip down to self-dom and flee--
Keys turned in the lock, and the King asked for her
"I do," among other things. She gave,
Naturally.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
MADLIBS
Write down random words for the following parts of speech on a piece of paper:
[OCCUPATION]
[ADJECTIVE1]
[NOUN1]
[NOUN2]
[NOUN3]
[ADJECTIVE2]
[NOUN4]
[NOUN5]
[VERB1]
[VERB2]
[ADJECTIVE3]
[ADJECTIVE4]
[ADJECTIVE5]
[PLURAL NOUN1]
[ADJECTIVE6]
[PART OF BODY1]
[ADJECTIVE7]
[NOUN6]
[ADJECTIVE8]
[NOUN7]
[PART OF BODY2]
[SOUND]
[UNIT OF MEASURE]
[SUPERLATIVE]
[PART OF BODY3]
[VERB-ED1]
[NUMBER1]
[NOUN8]
[LENGTH OF TIME1]
[ADJECTIVE9]
[VERB-ING1]
[EMOTION1]
[NOUN9]
[LENGTH OF TIME2]
[ADJECTIVE10]
[SILLY NAME1]
[SILLY NAME2]
[SILLY NAME3]
[PLURAL NOUN2]
[ADJECTIVE11]
[NOUN10]
[NOUN11]
[VERB-ED2]
[VERB-ING2]
[VERB-ING3]
[ADJECTIVE12]
[VERB-ED3]
[PLURAL NOUN3]
[SILLY NAME4]
[SILLY NAME5]
[SILLY NAME6]
[EMOTION2]
[PART OF BODY4]
[PLURAL NOUN4]
[NUMBER2]
Now, fill them into the story:
Once upon a time there lived a [OCCUPATION] who had a [ADJECTIVE1] daughter.
Now the [OCCUPATION] had to visit the king's [NOUN1], and, while there, he happened to meet the king face to face. He told the king that he had a daughter who could spin [NOUN2] into [NOUN3].
Now it happened that the king loved [NOUN3] above all things. So taking the poor girl by the hand, he led her into one of the [ADJECTIVE2] rooms of the [NOUN1].
There, in the middle of the room, stood a spinning [NOUN4], and near it was a great heap of [NOUN2]. The king said, "If you do not spin all of it into [NOUN3] by morning, your [NOUN5] shall be cut off."
The poor girl could only [VERB1] and [VERB2], for she had not the least idea how to spin [NOUN2] into [NOUN3].
The door flew open and a [ADJECTIVE3] [ADJECTIVE4] man stepped into the room. He had [ADJECTIVE5] [PLURAL NOUN1], a [ADJECTIVE6] [PART OF BODY1], and wore a [ADJECTIVE7] [NOUN6]. Bowing low to the maiden, he said: "What will you give me if I will spin it for you?"
"This [ADJECTIVE8] [NOUN7] from my [PART OF BODY2]," said the girl.
The [ADJECTIVE3] man took the [NOUN7], and, sitting down, began to spin.
[SOUND]! [SOUND]! went the [NOUN4]. He kept so busily at work that soon all the [NOUN2] was gone, and in its place lay a [UNIT OF MEASURE] of the [SUPERLATIVE] [NOUN3].
The next morning the king unlocked the door. How his [PART OF BODY3] [VERB-ED1] at the sight of the [NOUN3]!
These riches made the king even more greedy than before. Therefore, this all was repeated [NUMBER1] more times. Finally, the king promised to marry the [OCCUPATION]'s daughter instead of cutting off her [NOUN5], and the girl promised the [ADJECTIVE3] man her firstborn [NOUN8].
The king kept his promise, and about [LENGTH OF TIME1] later the queen had a [ADJECTIVE9] [NOUN8]. But she forgot all about her promise.
One day the [ADJECTIVE3] [ADJECTIVE4] man came [VERB-ING1] into the queen's room and said, "Now give me what you have promised."
The queen was filled with [EMOTION1], and offered him all the [NOUN9] of the kingdom if he would leave her the [NOUN8].
"I will give you [LENGTH OF TIME2]," he said, "and if, in that time, you can guess my name, you shall keep the [NOUN8]."
When the [ADJECTIVE3] man came again, the queen had a [ADJECTIVE10] list of names to give him.
"Is you name [SILLY NAME1], or [SILLY NAME2], or [SILLY NAME3]?" she said to him.
He answered to each one, "No, that is not my name."
The queen's [PLURAL NOUN2] had been far and wide to find new names. One of these [PLURAL NOUN2] said, "I came upon a [ADJECTIVE11] [NOUN10], in front of which a [NOUN11] was burning. Around this [NOUN11] [VERB-ED2] a [ADJECTIVE3] [ADJECTIVE4] man who had a [ADJECTIVE5] [PLURAL NOUN1], a [ADJECTIVE6] [PART OF BODY1], and wore a [ADJECTIVE7] [NOUN6]. He sang:
My [VERB-ING2] and [VERB-ING3] I will do today,
The queen's [NOUN8] to-morrow I will take away,
No [ADJECTIVE12] man can show the queen where to begin,
For my name, to be sure, is [SILLY NAME4]."
The queen [VERB-ED3] her [PLURAL NOUN3] for joy. She knew that at last she had found the name.
At sunset the [ADJECTIVE3] man came [VERB-ING2] and [VERB-ING3] up to the queen.
"Now, O queen," he said, "this is your last chance. Tell me my name."
The queen asked, "Is your name [SILLY NAME5]?"
"No."
"[SILLY NAME6]?"
"No."
"Then your name is [SILLY NAME4]."
He became so [EMOTION2] that he stamped his [PART OF BODY4] right into the ground.
This made him more [EMOTION2] still, and taking hold of his [PART OF BODY4] with both [PLURAL NOUN4], he pulled so hard that he tore himself quite in [NUMBER2].
source text from:
Antelope Publishing Ongoing Tales
The Brothers Grimm, taken from the 1914 Beacon Second Reader
http://ongoing-tales.com/SERIALS/oldtime/FAIRYTALES/stiltskin.html
[OCCUPATION]
[ADJECTIVE1]
[NOUN1]
[NOUN2]
[NOUN3]
[ADJECTIVE2]
[NOUN4]
[NOUN5]
[VERB1]
[VERB2]
[ADJECTIVE3]
[ADJECTIVE4]
[ADJECTIVE5]
[PLURAL NOUN1]
[ADJECTIVE6]
[PART OF BODY1]
[ADJECTIVE7]
[NOUN6]
[ADJECTIVE8]
[NOUN7]
[PART OF BODY2]
[SOUND]
[UNIT OF MEASURE]
[SUPERLATIVE]
[PART OF BODY3]
[VERB-ED1]
[NUMBER1]
[NOUN8]
[LENGTH OF TIME1]
[ADJECTIVE9]
[VERB-ING1]
[EMOTION1]
[NOUN9]
[LENGTH OF TIME2]
[ADJECTIVE10]
[SILLY NAME1]
[SILLY NAME2]
[SILLY NAME3]
[PLURAL NOUN2]
[ADJECTIVE11]
[NOUN10]
[NOUN11]
[VERB-ED2]
[VERB-ING2]
[VERB-ING3]
[ADJECTIVE12]
[VERB-ED3]
[PLURAL NOUN3]
[SILLY NAME4]
[SILLY NAME5]
[SILLY NAME6]
[EMOTION2]
[PART OF BODY4]
[PLURAL NOUN4]
[NUMBER2]
Now, fill them into the story:
Once upon a time there lived a [OCCUPATION] who had a [ADJECTIVE1] daughter.
Now the [OCCUPATION] had to visit the king's [NOUN1], and, while there, he happened to meet the king face to face. He told the king that he had a daughter who could spin [NOUN2] into [NOUN3].
Now it happened that the king loved [NOUN3] above all things. So taking the poor girl by the hand, he led her into one of the [ADJECTIVE2] rooms of the [NOUN1].
There, in the middle of the room, stood a spinning [NOUN4], and near it was a great heap of [NOUN2]. The king said, "If you do not spin all of it into [NOUN3] by morning, your [NOUN5] shall be cut off."
The poor girl could only [VERB1] and [VERB2], for she had not the least idea how to spin [NOUN2] into [NOUN3].
The door flew open and a [ADJECTIVE3] [ADJECTIVE4] man stepped into the room. He had [ADJECTIVE5] [PLURAL NOUN1], a [ADJECTIVE6] [PART OF BODY1], and wore a [ADJECTIVE7] [NOUN6]. Bowing low to the maiden, he said: "What will you give me if I will spin it for you?"
"This [ADJECTIVE8] [NOUN7] from my [PART OF BODY2]," said the girl.
The [ADJECTIVE3] man took the [NOUN7], and, sitting down, began to spin.
[SOUND]! [SOUND]! went the [NOUN4]. He kept so busily at work that soon all the [NOUN2] was gone, and in its place lay a [UNIT OF MEASURE] of the [SUPERLATIVE] [NOUN3].
The next morning the king unlocked the door. How his [PART OF BODY3] [VERB-ED1] at the sight of the [NOUN3]!
These riches made the king even more greedy than before. Therefore, this all was repeated [NUMBER1] more times. Finally, the king promised to marry the [OCCUPATION]'s daughter instead of cutting off her [NOUN5], and the girl promised the [ADJECTIVE3] man her firstborn [NOUN8].
The king kept his promise, and about [LENGTH OF TIME1] later the queen had a [ADJECTIVE9] [NOUN8]. But she forgot all about her promise.
One day the [ADJECTIVE3] [ADJECTIVE4] man came [VERB-ING1] into the queen's room and said, "Now give me what you have promised."
The queen was filled with [EMOTION1], and offered him all the [NOUN9] of the kingdom if he would leave her the [NOUN8].
"I will give you [LENGTH OF TIME2]," he said, "and if, in that time, you can guess my name, you shall keep the [NOUN8]."
When the [ADJECTIVE3] man came again, the queen had a [ADJECTIVE10] list of names to give him.
"Is you name [SILLY NAME1], or [SILLY NAME2], or [SILLY NAME3]?" she said to him.
He answered to each one, "No, that is not my name."
The queen's [PLURAL NOUN2] had been far and wide to find new names. One of these [PLURAL NOUN2] said, "I came upon a [ADJECTIVE11] [NOUN10], in front of which a [NOUN11] was burning. Around this [NOUN11] [VERB-ED2] a [ADJECTIVE3] [ADJECTIVE4] man who had a [ADJECTIVE5] [PLURAL NOUN1], a [ADJECTIVE6] [PART OF BODY1], and wore a [ADJECTIVE7] [NOUN6]. He sang:
My [VERB-ING2] and [VERB-ING3] I will do today,
The queen's [NOUN8] to-morrow I will take away,
No [ADJECTIVE12] man can show the queen where to begin,
For my name, to be sure, is [SILLY NAME4]."
The queen [VERB-ED3] her [PLURAL NOUN3] for joy. She knew that at last she had found the name.
At sunset the [ADJECTIVE3] man came [VERB-ING2] and [VERB-ING3] up to the queen.
"Now, O queen," he said, "this is your last chance. Tell me my name."
The queen asked, "Is your name [SILLY NAME5]?"
"No."
"[SILLY NAME6]?"
"No."
"Then your name is [SILLY NAME4]."
He became so [EMOTION2] that he stamped his [PART OF BODY4] right into the ground.
This made him more [EMOTION2] still, and taking hold of his [PART OF BODY4] with both [PLURAL NOUN4], he pulled so hard that he tore himself quite in [NUMBER2].
source text from:
Antelope Publishing Ongoing Tales
The Brothers Grimm, taken from the 1914 Beacon Second Reader
http://ongoing-tales.com/SERIALS/oldtime/FAIRYTALES/stiltskin.html
Monday, May 5, 2008
Rumpelstiltskin... in a pair of Haikus
Her father boasted
She was trapped by the king's greed
So she sold her son
To Rumpelstiltskin
But she was lucky and he
Went back home lonely
She was trapped by the king's greed
So she sold her son
To Rumpelstiltskin
But she was lucky and he
Went back home lonely
Sunday, May 4, 2008
a long way off
we found ourselves in a forest, far away from what we knew,
but close to everything we'd learned
and i couldn't tell for sure who was who - if i was the miller's daughter, or rumpelstiltskin, or the greedy king
or the baby, without any say in her parentage
it was only a dream, you said, only a dream
but it has been embedded behind my lids as long as i could remember
the image of the strange man dancing by the fire
fear and longing vying in my chest
but close to everything we'd learned
and i couldn't tell for sure who was who - if i was the miller's daughter, or rumpelstiltskin, or the greedy king
or the baby, without any say in her parentage
it was only a dream, you said, only a dream
but it has been embedded behind my lids as long as i could remember
the image of the strange man dancing by the fire
fear and longing vying in my chest
Hubba Hubba
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 pretty hot daughter. She was, moreover, very shrewd and clever. 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 not in the way that he should) and missed the wife who had passed on in childbirth. They were used to his outrageous boasts, and knew that the two of them fucked like rabbits several times a day. But the king did not know about all this incest, and thought only of the gold. When he heard the miller's boast his greediness was raised, and he sent for the girl to be brought before him. When he finally saw her, he was surprised to find that she aroused an enormous, pulsating hard-on. Unfortunately, he just couldn't contain his enthusiasm, and came in his pants before he was able to drop them. Instead, to conceal his embarrassment, he led her to a chamber in his palace where there was a great heap of straw, and gave her a spinning-wheel, and said, 'All this must be spun into gold before morning, as you love your life.' It was in vain that the poor maiden said that her father was full of it, for that she could do no such thing as spin straw into gold: the chamber door was locked, and she was left alone. For a moment she cherished the silence, the chance to be alone. She certainly used it to her advantage. She sat at the spinning wheel and took off her dress. She was going at it with both hands beneath her skirt when she realized how screwed she was about spinning straw into gold.
She sat down in one corner of the room, and began moping; when on a sudden the door opened, and a fugly 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 bosom. 'My necklace,' replied the maiden. A token from when her father's business was good, before they started fucking so much he couldn't keep up with business. She could not remember a time when she had not had its weight around her neck like a halter. He was a little disappointed - he had wanted to suck her heaving breasts. But, taking the necklace was better than nothing. 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 left, with the necklace in his pocket and wandered off into the woods, towards the small treehouse he called home. It was the middle of the night, so he was unlikely to be seen, but even in broad daylight, the hobgloblin was adept at concealing himself and rarely noticed by passers-by.
It was a bittersweet night for him. Tonight was the first time that he had ever been into the town, and his brief exchange with the maiden seemed to him the longest conversation he had ever known. Additionally, he hadn't been that close to a hot girl in a long time (any girl, really). He felt a mild tingling in his loins, but was unable to identify the new feeling.
Many years ago--the dwarf had lost track of time--the townspeople had turned from persecuting witches and Protestants to persecuting dwarves. Indeed, signs appeared outside shops with
height requirements for entrance, and human children were wont to throw sticks at dwarves if they met them on the road. At that time, most of the dwarves he knew had left and moved to other villages,
but he had insisted on staying behind, perhaps out of sentimentality, perhaps out of pride. With his ability to weave gold out of straw, he was well off. Once a week, he would carry his bundle of gold to the next town, where anti-dwarf laws were less severe, and buy food, clothing, books and various odds and ends to make his quiet lonely home more appealing. At nights, he would creep out to the neighboring farmhouses to get straw for the next days work. It was easy to get ahold of--the humans had a knack for throwing things away without knowing their value. In this way, he got on well, and had lots of extra gold stored up in his cellar for hard times. As years passed, the townspeople became convinced that all the dwarves had at last been eradicated. The town huntsmen who had seen the hobgoblin during their journeys into the woods could not bring themselves to turn him in to town authorities--it had been so long since the last dwarf left that no one would believe them. Not to mention that they knew not where he lived, or his name. Amongst themselves, huntsmen referred to him simply as the "creeper," for the he was always watching them as they urinated behind trees.
At first, the hobgloblin was pleased with himself: he was rich without working and could come and go more or less as he pleased, anywhere in the land except into town. He took a certain pride in his ability to outwit the townspeople, and chuckled to himself if, when human children walked up and he made brothers and sisters 69 while he watched. This was more fun than watching grown men urinate, but he wasn't sure why. Again, he was unable to identify the reason for the tingling in his loins. Soon the dwarf found himself half-wishing to be caught, or to have the huntsmen call him something, anything, other than the "creeper." He decided to sneak into town and find some human who might want to speak to him. It had been so long, however, since he'd had a friend that he hardly knew how to start a conversation. Imagine his joy, then, on hearing that the King had found a girl who could spin straw into gold. He thought it would be another one of his kind.
Upon reaching the castle and sneaking in to the girl's chamber, the dwarf was so angered to have his expectations thus dashed, that he had first wanted to scare or startle her. But when she began to cry, he felt bad for her. Instead, he decided to fondle her, and hope--if not to make her his friend--to tie her to him by dependency. After so many years living alone with his straw-gold, after all, it was hard to imagine having sex, rather than watch children do it. He went to sleep that night pleased with himself. The next morning, he set out again for the castle to check on his new acquaintance.
Meanwhile, at the castle, the girl awoke to the sound of the king and his guardsmen "supermanning." But when the king entered and saw the gold, he lost his boner; but his heart grew still more greedy of gain, and he shut up the poor miller's daughter again with a fresh task. Then she knew not what to do, and sat down once more to weep; but the dwarf soon opened the door, and said, 'What will you give me to do your task?' Slowly but surely, a plan was forming a shadowy base in his mind. He was starting to understand the feelings in his loins. He wanted her to touch them very badly, and was staring at her fingers. 'The ring on my finger,' said she. The only possession left her, the last trace of her mother's life. He was disappointed, but realized that this was better than nothing. Besides, he might be able to use it as a cock ring later, for his penis was dwarfed just like his body. So he took the ring, and began to work at the wheel again, and whistled and sang:
'Round about, round about,
Lo and behold!
Reel away, reel away,
Straw into gold!'
till, long before morning, all was done again. The hobgoblin went home and masturbated for the first time that night, clutching the ring in his pocket. It was raining and windy but he was not bothered. For the first time in many years, he felt he had a purpose, a mission, something to wake up in the morning for. Manipulative as his scheme was, it was only fair (he rationalized) since he had to make up for lost time because it had taken him so long to reach puberty.
The king was greatly delighted to see all this glittering treasure; but still he had not enough: so he took the miller's daughter to a yet larger heap, and said, 'All this must be spun tonight; and if it is, you shall be my queen and we can fuck like rabbits.' As soon as she was alone that dwarf 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.' Finally a child of his own. A permanent 69 partner.
'That may never be,' thought the miller's daughter: and as she knew no other way to get her task done, she said she would do what he asked. She could not conceive of wanting a child with that swine of a man anyway. Really, she could not imagine wanting a child at all - it would make sex so inconvenient. Round went the wheel again to the old song, and the man once more spun the heap into gold. The king came in the morning, and, finding all he wanted, was forced to keep his word; so he married the miller's daughter, and she really became queen.
Wwhen the door opened in the morning the king was standing there with her father. He was overcome with joy, weeping uncontrollably and blabbering about how he had never been much of a father, but he had always know she was special, and look, now she would be queen. The king smiled the smile of a snake in the sun and patted the old miller on the back. 'My dear,' he said to her, 'isn't your father quaint?' And from the look in his eyes she knew he wanted a threesome. She was all too happy to oblige. She was so thrilled to see her father again, and had missed their sex very much.
At the birth of her first little child she was very glad, and forgot the dwarf, and what she had said. Or at least it seemed she had forgotten. But she named the baby Aurelia, meaning golden, and she kept the child always in the room with her, never letting her out of her sight. She was afraid the king would try to finger her. Children should be at least 2 before getting felt up by their parents. The king, who had hoped for a son, was pissed. 'Come!' he said, 'let the child be.' He was eager to have the babe off in a nursery, to return to fucking his queen. But the queen refused. The king just wasn't as good in bed as her father had been. It was better when she pleasured herself on her own. The king scowled, but he wouldn't come near while she held her daughter in her arms. And sometimes she found herself holding the child and staring wistfully out the window, late at night, as if to say - here she is - won't you come? She never uttered the words aloud, even to herself. Giving the child away meant returning to her king, who was just really, really bad in bed. Her eyes searched the horizon even as her grip tightened around Aurelia's small frame.
But one day he came into her room, where she was sitting "playing" with her baby, and put her in mind of it. Seeing him who had haunted her nightmares and colored her dreams, always just in shadow on the edge of her waking, her breath caught. And for a moment, she imagined the desire she had never let herself know, thought of sleeping with him. It would be so easy; he was so fugly he'd never refuse her. She got up the nerve to tell him, almost. But then she saw that his eyes no longer sought her - they were all on the child, untarnished, unaware. He looked at the baby and seemed to see someone who had not yet learned to fear him, not someone like the queen, whose was looser from the childbirth. Then she grieved sorely at her misfortune. She looked down at Aurelia and refused to let her daughter know an erotica she could not. She cried real tears, but they were not of the origins the dwarf suspected. Clutching the baby tightly she begged him to go, and said she would give him all the wealth of the kingdom if he would let her off, but in vain; till at last her tears softened him, and he said, 'I will give you three days' grace, and if during that time you tell me my name, you shall keep your child.'
Now the queen lay awake all night, thinking of all the odd names that she had ever heard; and she sent messengers all over the land to find out new ones. The next day the little man came, and she began with TIMOTHY, ICHABOD, BENJAMIN, JEREMIAH, and all the names she could remember; but to all and each of them he said, 'Madam, that is not my name.'
The second day she began with all the comical names she could hear of, BANDY-LEGS, HUNCHBACK, CROOK-SHANKS, and so on; but the little gentleman still said to every one of them, 'Madam, 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 fugly 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, wondering what he could gain for his trouble. He had never seen this look on her face before, and was surprised to think that he might have a chance with her. There was something in her smile, though, that was not quite right, something maniacal in her jumping. Related somehow, he was sure, was the tightness of her fingers when she held the baby. Still, she looked like she really wanted it. And, hey, if she wanted the baby to be a part of it all, fine. But she had eyes only for the horizon, and after he spoke she noticed him not at all, and varied her gaze from the baby to the landscape, seeming engaged in some inner dialogue. He found himself completely forgotten, so much so that he caught her mumbling, "Rumpelstiltskin," over and over. Awkwardly, he turned to go, casting one last look at her. Even in the fading light, he noticed, with the sun's rays coming in through the window, that she really had the junk in the drunk.
And as soon as her little friend came the queen sat down upon her throne, and called all her court round to enjoy the fun, her eyes gleaming; and the nurse stood by her side with the baby in her arms, as if it was quite ready to be given up. Then the little man began to chuckle at the thought of having the poor child,to take home with him to his hut in the woods; and he cried out, 'Now, lady, what is my name?' 'Is it JOHN?' asked she. 'No, madam!' 'Is it
TOM?' 'No, madam!' 'Is it JEMMY?' 'It is not.' 'Can your name be RUMPELSTILTSKIN?' said the lady slyly. 'Some witch told you that!--some witch told you that!' cried the little man, and dashed his dick in a rage so deep into the floor, that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it out. He had waited so long for the child, looked forward to dashing his dick into her so deep he would be forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it out. The shock of losing her was perhaps worse than the long years of loneliness that preceded his encounter with the miller's daughter. He had once heard a human hunter mention something about it being better to have loved and lost, but the hobgoblin was not sure he believed it.
Then he made the best of his way off, while the nurse laughed and the baby crowed; and all the court jeered at him for having had so much trouble for nothing, and said, 'We wish you a very good morning, and a merry feast, Mr RUMPLESTILTSKIN!'
And the queen smiled with the best of them. As the crowd died away, the king came up and said, 'Tonight, madam, the girl will stay with the nurse. You see, she is perfectly safe now. You can spend the night with me, instead.' He walked away, and she stared after him, her smile fading fast, wondering, 'What have I done? I really can't bring myself to sleep with him. It's just no good...' And she took up the babe from the nurse's arms, and held her close, looking out the door where Rumplestiltskin had gone away. She ran after him, screaming, "If I give you the child, can we have a threesome? I'll let you watch while Aurelia and I 69!"
source text from:
*The Project Gutenberg Etext Fairy Tales, by the Grimm Brothers*
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Brothers Grimm
April, 2001 [Etext #2591]
She sat down in one corner of the room, and began moping; when on a sudden the door opened, and a fugly 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 bosom. 'My necklace,' replied the maiden. A token from when her father's business was good, before they started fucking so much he couldn't keep up with business. She could not remember a time when she had not had its weight around her neck like a halter. He was a little disappointed - he had wanted to suck her heaving breasts. But, taking the necklace was better than nothing. 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 left, with the necklace in his pocket and wandered off into the woods, towards the small treehouse he called home. It was the middle of the night, so he was unlikely to be seen, but even in broad daylight, the hobgloblin was adept at concealing himself and rarely noticed by passers-by.
It was a bittersweet night for him. Tonight was the first time that he had ever been into the town, and his brief exchange with the maiden seemed to him the longest conversation he had ever known. Additionally, he hadn't been that close to a hot girl in a long time (any girl, really). He felt a mild tingling in his loins, but was unable to identify the new feeling.
Many years ago--the dwarf had lost track of time--the townspeople had turned from persecuting witches and Protestants to persecuting dwarves. Indeed, signs appeared outside shops with
height requirements for entrance, and human children were wont to throw sticks at dwarves if they met them on the road. At that time, most of the dwarves he knew had left and moved to other villages,
but he had insisted on staying behind, perhaps out of sentimentality, perhaps out of pride. With his ability to weave gold out of straw, he was well off. Once a week, he would carry his bundle of gold to the next town, where anti-dwarf laws were less severe, and buy food, clothing, books and various odds and ends to make his quiet lonely home more appealing. At nights, he would creep out to the neighboring farmhouses to get straw for the next days work. It was easy to get ahold of--the humans had a knack for throwing things away without knowing their value. In this way, he got on well, and had lots of extra gold stored up in his cellar for hard times. As years passed, the townspeople became convinced that all the dwarves had at last been eradicated. The town huntsmen who had seen the hobgoblin during their journeys into the woods could not bring themselves to turn him in to town authorities--it had been so long since the last dwarf left that no one would believe them. Not to mention that they knew not where he lived, or his name. Amongst themselves, huntsmen referred to him simply as the "creeper," for the he was always watching them as they urinated behind trees.
At first, the hobgloblin was pleased with himself: he was rich without working and could come and go more or less as he pleased, anywhere in the land except into town. He took a certain pride in his ability to outwit the townspeople, and chuckled to himself if, when human children walked up and he made brothers and sisters 69 while he watched. This was more fun than watching grown men urinate, but he wasn't sure why. Again, he was unable to identify the reason for the tingling in his loins. Soon the dwarf found himself half-wishing to be caught, or to have the huntsmen call him something, anything, other than the "creeper." He decided to sneak into town and find some human who might want to speak to him. It had been so long, however, since he'd had a friend that he hardly knew how to start a conversation. Imagine his joy, then, on hearing that the King had found a girl who could spin straw into gold. He thought it would be another one of his kind.
Upon reaching the castle and sneaking in to the girl's chamber, the dwarf was so angered to have his expectations thus dashed, that he had first wanted to scare or startle her. But when she began to cry, he felt bad for her. Instead, he decided to fondle her, and hope--if not to make her his friend--to tie her to him by dependency. After so many years living alone with his straw-gold, after all, it was hard to imagine having sex, rather than watch children do it. He went to sleep that night pleased with himself. The next morning, he set out again for the castle to check on his new acquaintance.
Meanwhile, at the castle, the girl awoke to the sound of the king and his guardsmen "supermanning." But when the king entered and saw the gold, he lost his boner; but his heart grew still more greedy of gain, and he shut up the poor miller's daughter again with a fresh task. Then she knew not what to do, and sat down once more to weep; but the dwarf soon opened the door, and said, 'What will you give me to do your task?' Slowly but surely, a plan was forming a shadowy base in his mind. He was starting to understand the feelings in his loins. He wanted her to touch them very badly, and was staring at her fingers. 'The ring on my finger,' said she. The only possession left her, the last trace of her mother's life. He was disappointed, but realized that this was better than nothing. Besides, he might be able to use it as a cock ring later, for his penis was dwarfed just like his body. So he took the ring, and began to work at the wheel again, and whistled and sang:
'Round about, round about,
Lo and behold!
Reel away, reel away,
Straw into gold!'
till, long before morning, all was done again. The hobgoblin went home and masturbated for the first time that night, clutching the ring in his pocket. It was raining and windy but he was not bothered. For the first time in many years, he felt he had a purpose, a mission, something to wake up in the morning for. Manipulative as his scheme was, it was only fair (he rationalized) since he had to make up for lost time because it had taken him so long to reach puberty.
The king was greatly delighted to see all this glittering treasure; but still he had not enough: so he took the miller's daughter to a yet larger heap, and said, 'All this must be spun tonight; and if it is, you shall be my queen and we can fuck like rabbits.' As soon as she was alone that dwarf 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.' Finally a child of his own. A permanent 69 partner.
'That may never be,' thought the miller's daughter: and as she knew no other way to get her task done, she said she would do what he asked. She could not conceive of wanting a child with that swine of a man anyway. Really, she could not imagine wanting a child at all - it would make sex so inconvenient. Round went the wheel again to the old song, and the man once more spun the heap into gold. The king came in the morning, and, finding all he wanted, was forced to keep his word; so he married the miller's daughter, and she really became queen.
Wwhen the door opened in the morning the king was standing there with her father. He was overcome with joy, weeping uncontrollably and blabbering about how he had never been much of a father, but he had always know she was special, and look, now she would be queen. The king smiled the smile of a snake in the sun and patted the old miller on the back. 'My dear,' he said to her, 'isn't your father quaint?' And from the look in his eyes she knew he wanted a threesome. She was all too happy to oblige. She was so thrilled to see her father again, and had missed their sex very much.
At the birth of her first little child she was very glad, and forgot the dwarf, and what she had said. Or at least it seemed she had forgotten. But she named the baby Aurelia, meaning golden, and she kept the child always in the room with her, never letting her out of her sight. She was afraid the king would try to finger her. Children should be at least 2 before getting felt up by their parents. The king, who had hoped for a son, was pissed. 'Come!' he said, 'let the child be.' He was eager to have the babe off in a nursery, to return to fucking his queen. But the queen refused. The king just wasn't as good in bed as her father had been. It was better when she pleasured herself on her own. The king scowled, but he wouldn't come near while she held her daughter in her arms. And sometimes she found herself holding the child and staring wistfully out the window, late at night, as if to say - here she is - won't you come? She never uttered the words aloud, even to herself. Giving the child away meant returning to her king, who was just really, really bad in bed. Her eyes searched the horizon even as her grip tightened around Aurelia's small frame.
But one day he came into her room, where she was sitting "playing" with her baby, and put her in mind of it. Seeing him who had haunted her nightmares and colored her dreams, always just in shadow on the edge of her waking, her breath caught. And for a moment, she imagined the desire she had never let herself know, thought of sleeping with him. It would be so easy; he was so fugly he'd never refuse her. She got up the nerve to tell him, almost. But then she saw that his eyes no longer sought her - they were all on the child, untarnished, unaware. He looked at the baby and seemed to see someone who had not yet learned to fear him, not someone like the queen, whose was looser from the childbirth. Then she grieved sorely at her misfortune. She looked down at Aurelia and refused to let her daughter know an erotica she could not. She cried real tears, but they were not of the origins the dwarf suspected. Clutching the baby tightly she begged him to go, and said she would give him all the wealth of the kingdom if he would let her off, but in vain; till at last her tears softened him, and he said, 'I will give you three days' grace, and if during that time you tell me my name, you shall keep your child.'
Now the queen lay awake all night, thinking of all the odd names that she had ever heard; and she sent messengers all over the land to find out new ones. The next day the little man came, and she began with TIMOTHY, ICHABOD, BENJAMIN, JEREMIAH, and all the names she could remember; but to all and each of them he said, 'Madam, that is not my name.'
The second day she began with all the comical names she could hear of, BANDY-LEGS, HUNCHBACK, CROOK-SHANKS, and so on; but the little gentleman still said to every one of them, 'Madam, 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 fugly 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, wondering what he could gain for his trouble. He had never seen this look on her face before, and was surprised to think that he might have a chance with her. There was something in her smile, though, that was not quite right, something maniacal in her jumping. Related somehow, he was sure, was the tightness of her fingers when she held the baby. Still, she looked like she really wanted it. And, hey, if she wanted the baby to be a part of it all, fine. But she had eyes only for the horizon, and after he spoke she noticed him not at all, and varied her gaze from the baby to the landscape, seeming engaged in some inner dialogue. He found himself completely forgotten, so much so that he caught her mumbling, "Rumpelstiltskin," over and over. Awkwardly, he turned to go, casting one last look at her. Even in the fading light, he noticed, with the sun's rays coming in through the window, that she really had the junk in the drunk.
And as soon as her little friend came the queen sat down upon her throne, and called all her court round to enjoy the fun, her eyes gleaming; and the nurse stood by her side with the baby in her arms, as if it was quite ready to be given up. Then the little man began to chuckle at the thought of having the poor child,to take home with him to his hut in the woods; and he cried out, 'Now, lady, what is my name?' 'Is it JOHN?' asked she. 'No, madam!' 'Is it
TOM?' 'No, madam!' 'Is it JEMMY?' 'It is not.' 'Can your name be RUMPELSTILTSKIN?' said the lady slyly. 'Some witch told you that!--some witch told you that!' cried the little man, and dashed his dick in a rage so deep into the floor, that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it out. He had waited so long for the child, looked forward to dashing his dick into her so deep he would be forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it out. The shock of losing her was perhaps worse than the long years of loneliness that preceded his encounter with the miller's daughter. He had once heard a human hunter mention something about it being better to have loved and lost, but the hobgoblin was not sure he believed it.
Then he made the best of his way off, while the nurse laughed and the baby crowed; and all the court jeered at him for having had so much trouble for nothing, and said, 'We wish you a very good morning, and a merry feast, Mr RUMPLESTILTSKIN!'
And the queen smiled with the best of them. As the crowd died away, the king came up and said, 'Tonight, madam, the girl will stay with the nurse. You see, she is perfectly safe now. You can spend the night with me, instead.' He walked away, and she stared after him, her smile fading fast, wondering, 'What have I done? I really can't bring myself to sleep with him. It's just no good...' And she took up the babe from the nurse's arms, and held her close, looking out the door where Rumplestiltskin had gone away. She ran after him, screaming, "If I give you the child, can we have a threesome? I'll let you watch while Aurelia and I 69!"
source text from:
*The Project Gutenberg Etext Fairy Tales, by the Grimm Brothers*
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Brothers Grimm
April, 2001 [Etext #2591]
Moonrocks into Gold
Once upon a time, on a far away planet, ran a boiling stream of lava, and on top of that stream of lava sat a power plant. The power plant operator's house was very close by, and the operator, you must know, had a very beautiful daughter. She was, moreover, very shrewd and clever; and the operator was so proud of her, that he one day told the king of the planet, who used to come and hunt in the steaming sulfur pits, that his daughter could spin gold out of moonrocks. Everyone in the town knew the power plant operator 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 raised, and he sent for the girl to be brought before him. Then he led her to a chamber in his palace where there was a great heap of moonrocks, and gave her a spinning-wheel, and said, 'All this must be spun into gold before morning, as you love your life.' It was in vain that the poor maiden said that it was only a silly boast of her father, for that she could do no such thing as spin moonrocks into gold: the chamber door was locked, and she was left alone. For a moment she cherished the silence, the chance to be alone. But then the immensity of the thing enveloped her, and she felt weak.
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 little green alien hobbled in, and said, 'Good morrow to you, my good lass; what are you weeping for?' 'Alas!' said she, 'I must spin these moonrocks 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 space helmet encrusted with diamonds,' 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 on top of her head. 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,
Rocks into gold!'
And round about the wheel went merrily; the work was quickly done, and the moonrocks were all spun into gold.
The hobgloblin left, with the helmet perched on his head and wandered off into the sulfur pits, towards the small crater he called home. It was the middle of the night, so he was unlikely to be seen, but even in broad daylight, the hobgloblin was adept at concealing himself and rarely noticed by passers-by.
It was a bittersweet night for him. Tonight was the first time that he had ever been into the town, and his brief exchange with the maiden seemed to him the longest conversation he had ever known:
Many years ago--the little green alien had lost track of time--the townspeople had turned from persecuting large blue aliens and tall, lanky red aliens to persecuting the little green aliens who lived in the sulfur pits. Indeed, signs appeared outside shops with
height requirements for entrance, and human children were wont to throw sticks at dwarves if they met them on the road. At that time, most of the green aliens he knew had left and moved to other villages,
but he had insisted on staying behind, perhaps out of sentimentality, perhaps out of pride. With his ability to weave gold out of moonrocks, he was well off. Once a week, he would carry his bundle of gold to the next town, where anti-green alien laws were less severe, and buy food, clothing, books and various odds and ends to make his quiet lonely home more appealing. At nights, he would creep out to the neighboring space stations to get moonrocks for the next days work. They were easy to get ahold of--the humans had a knack for throwing things away without knowing their value. In this way, he got on well, and had lots of extra gold stored up in his cellar for hard times. As years passed, the townspeople became convinced that all the little green aliens had at last been eradicated. The town huntsmen who had seen the creature during their journeys into the woods could not bring themselves to turn him in to town authorities--it had been so long since the last alien left that no one would believe them. Not to mention that they knew not where he lived, or his name. Amongst themselves, huntsmen referred to him simply as the "shadow-man," for the brief shade he would cast over their camp as he scampered by.
At first, the alien was pleased with himself: he was rich without working and could come and go more or less as he pleased, anywhere in the land except into town. He took a certain pride in his ability to outwit the townspeople, and chuckled to himself if, when human children walked up, the brother would tell the sister that "the aliens were out to get her" to which the sister would giggle and say, "Silly, there are no little green aliens anymore." But, like all good jokes, this one lost its humor after the fifth or sixth telling. Soon the aliens found himself half-wishing to be caught, or to have the huntsmen call him something, anything, other than the "shadow-man." He decided to sneak into town and find some human who might want to speak to him. It had been so long, however, since he'd had a friend that he hardly knew how to start a conversation. Imagine his joy, then, on hearing that the King had found a girl who could spin moonrocks into gold. He thought it would be another one of his kind.
Upon reaching the castle and sneaking in to the girl's chamber, the dwarf was so angered to have his expectations thus dashed, that he had first wanted to scare or startle her. But when she began to cry, he felt bad for her. Instead, he decided to help her, and hope--if not to make her his friend--to tie her to him by dependency. After so many years living alone with his moonrock-gold, after all, it was hard to imagine a friendship one could not buy. He went to asleep that night pleased with himself. The next morning, he set out again for the castle to check on his new acquaintance.
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 greatly astonished and pleased; but his heart grew still more greedy of gain, and he shut up the poor miller's daughter again with a fresh task. Then she knew not what to do, and sat down once more to weep; but the little green alien soon opened the door, and said, 'What will you give me to do your task?' Slowly but surely, a plan was forming a shadowy base in his mind. When you live alone for so long, watching the planets circulate in the starry sky, you begin to have a sense of the shape of things to come. And he saw her desperation, and he thought he might know where it would lead, if only he played things right. 'The teleporter ring on my finger,' said she. It was the only item of value that she had, the last trace of her mother's life. Her mother had given it to her before she passed away, so that she might travel to and from neighboring space stations more quickly. Now old enough to traverse the sulfur pits to visit her friends at various space stations, and confident in her ability to recall memories of her mother, she let it go without much thought. Survival meant more to her than a band of gold, even one that could transport her from one side of her small planet to the other. Without it, she even felt lighter, and found herself wishing never to wear one again. So her little friend took the transporter ring, and began to work at the wheel again, and whistled and sang:
'Round about, round about,
Lo and behold!
Reel away, reel away,
Rocks into gold!'
till, long before morning, all was done again. The hobgoblin went home happy again that night, clutching the ring in his pocket. It was raining and windy but he was not bothered. For the first time in many years, he felt he had a purpose, a mission, something to wake up in the morning for. Manipulative as his scheme was, it was only fair (he rationalized) after the discrimination and loneliness the humans had subjected him to.
The king was greatly delighted to see all this glittering treasure; but still he had not enough: so he took the power plant operator's daughter to a yet larger heap, and said, 'All this must be spun tonight; and if it is, you shall be my queen.' As soon as she was alone that little green alien 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.' Someone to be his friend. Truly. To keep him company, to look up to him. The pitter-patter of someone else's feet at night. A smiling face across the dinner table. A face that would remind him of this girl, a human whose place in town society was almost as degraded as his own.
'That may never be,' thought the power plant operator's daughter: and as she knew no other way to get her task done, she said she would do what he asked. She could not conceive of wanting a child with that swine of a man anyway. Really, she could not imagine wanting a child at all -- it was hard to raise children so far away from earth, and she could not imagine living anywhere else besides her sulfurous planet. Round went the wheel again to the old song, and the man once more spun the heap of chalky moonrocks into gold. The king came in the morning, and, finding all he wanted, was forced to keep his word; so he married the miller's daughter, and she really became queen.
It was not how she had meant for things to go. She had fallen asleep while the little green alien worked and when she awoke he was gone, and she was alone. But she had thought to herself that she would run when she got the chance. She would snatch the transporter ring out of his pocket, return it to her finger, and step out into the the darkness. Run while his eyes were filled with gold. At night, in the shadows. Maybe she would find a red alien whom she had met during her childhood. Maybe he could teach her how to survive in the forest. Or maybe she would go on her own, and if she perished at least she would be free.
But when the door opened in the morning the king was standing there with her father. He was overcome with joy, weeping uncontrollably and blabbering about how he had never been much of a father, but he had always know she was special, and look, now she would be queen. The king smiled the smile of a snake in the sun and patted the old power plant operator on the back, rattling the buttons of his space suit. 'My dear,' he said to her, 'isn't your father quaint?' And from the look in his eyes she knew it was a threat, and that if she ran the king would take it out on her father. And to take her father with her would mean no kind of freedom at all. So she left the her father's home, where at least she could walk among the steaming sulfur pits and daydream, and entered the castle, where the king forbid her to even wander among his carefully-manicured moonrock gardens.
At the birth of her first little child she was very glad, and forgot the little green alien, and what she had said. Or at least it seemed she had forgotten. But she named the baby Aurelia, meaning golden, and she kept the child always in the room with her, never letting her out of her sight. Finally, she had something of her own, even if it was one more being to be cared for, one more body producing cries for comfort. The king, who had hoped for a son, found her doting ridiculous. 'Come!' he said, 'let the child be.' He was eager to have the babe off in a nursery, to return to the business of producing an heir. But the queen refused, telling herself that the child was sickly, that it needed her protection. She wasn't sure though, deep down, whether maybe it was the child who was protecting her. The king scowled, but he wouldn't come near while she held her daughter in her arms. And sometimes she found herself holding the child and staring wistfully out the window, late at night, as if to say - here she is - won't you come? She never uttered the words aloud, even to herself. But her eyes searched the horizon even as her grip tightened around Aurelia's small frame.
But one day he came into her room, where she was sitting playing with her baby, and put her in mind of it. Seeing him who had haunted her nightmares and colored her dreams, always just in shadow on the edge of her waking, her breath caught. And for a moment, she imagined the desire she had never let herself know, thought of slipping away with him. It would be so easy, and then they would be gone. Away from the castle with its tall walls, away from the King who cared only for gold and his own pleasure. She got up the nerve to tell him, almost. But then she saw that his eyes no longer sought her - they were all on the child, untarnished, unaware. He looked at the baby and seemed to see someone who had not yet learned to fear him, someone he could make over in his image. Not someone like the queen, bowed with her sorrows but full of her own opinions. Then she grieved sorely at her misfortune, for she knew there was for her no way out of the castle. She looked down at Aurelia, her only creation, and refused to let her daughter know a freedom she could not. She cried real tears, but they were not of the origins the little green alien suspected. Clutching the baby tightly she begged him to go, and said she would give him all the wealth of the kingdom if he would let her off, but in vain; till at last her tears softened him, and he said, 'I will give you three days' grace, and if during that time you tell me my name, you shall keep your child.'
Now the queen lay awake all night, thinking of all the odd names that she had ever heard; and she sent messengers all over the land to find out new ones. The next day the little alien came, and she began with YTHOMIT, DOBAHCI, NIMAJNEB, HEIMEREJ, and all alien the names she could remember; but to all and each of them he he waved his lime-colored hand dismissively, shook his wrinkled ears, said, 'Madam, that is not my name.'
The second day she began with all the comical names she could hear of, SGRL-YDNAB, KCABHCNUH, SKAHS-KOORC, and so on; but the little alien waved his lime-colored hand, shook his ears, and still said to every one of them, 'Madam, 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 dune, among the rocks of the sulfur pits where brown aliens and the magenta aliens 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 alien 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, wondering what he could gain for his trouble. He had never seen this look on her face before, and was surprised to think that such happiness was new to her. There was something in her smile, though, that was not quite right, something maniacal in her jumping. Related somehow, he was sure, was the tightness of her fingers when she held the baby. Still, she was beautiful. He had seen the way she looked out on the kingdom from her castle room, and he longed to tell her more stories of his travels. But she had eyes only for the horizon, and after he spoke she noticed him not at all, and varied her gaze from the baby to the landscape, seeming engaged in some inner dialogue. He found himself completely forgotten, so much so that he caught her mumbling, "Rumpelstiltskin," over and over. Awkwardly, he turned to go, casting one last look at her. Even in the fading light, he noticed, with the sun's rays coming in through the window, her hair was nowhere near golden, though he thought he remembered hearing somewhere that she was known for her golden strands. Really, he thought, it's barely auburn. Closer to brown, really. Like mud - nothing that special. And he left, convinced that the queen was no prize, and that the king was only a fool.
And as soon as her little alien friend came the queen sat down upon her throne, and called all her court round to enjoy the fun, her eyes gleaming; and the nurse stood by her side with the baby in her arms, as if it was quite ready to be given up. Then the little alien began to chuckle at the thought of having the poor child,to take home with him to his hut in the sulfur pits; and he cried out, 'Now, lady, what is my name?' 'Is it NHOJ?' asked she. 'No, madam!' 'Is it
MOT?' 'No, madam!' 'Is it YEMMJ?' 'It is not.' 'Can your name be RUMPELSTILTSKIN?' said the lady slyly. 'Some witch told you that!--some witch told you that!' cried the little man, and dashed his right
foot in a rage so deep into the floor, that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it out. He had waited so long for the child, looked forward to its company, stolen baby clothes for it whenever he had the chance, planned the games they would play together and the adventures they would have. The shock of losing her was perhaps worse than the long years of loneliness that preceded his encounter with the power plant operator's's daughter. He had once heard a human hunter mention something about it being better to have loved and lost, but the hobgoblin was not sure he believed it.
Then he made the best of his way off, while the nurse laughed and the baby crowed; and all the court jeered at him for having had so much trouble for nothing, and said, 'We wish you a very good morning, and a merry feast, Mr RUMPLESTILTSKIN!'
And the queen smiled with the best of them. As the crowd died away, the king came up and said, 'Tonight, madam, the girl will stay with the nurse. You see, she is perfectly safe now. You can relax, and we can be alone.' He walked away, and she stared after him, her smile fading fast, wondering, 'What have I done?' And she took up the babe from the nurse's arms, and held her close, looking out the door where Rumplestiltskin had gone away, where she could not follow. 'Do you know why I envy him, Aurelia?' she asked the smiling child, who only cooed in answer. 'It is not because he can walk away. Or not only that. It is because now everyone knows his name, and they will never forget it. But I am as easily replaceable as moonrocks, and no one will ever know mine."
source text from:
*The Project Gutenberg Etext Fairy Tales, by the Grimm Brothers*
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Brothers Grimm
April, 2001 [Etext #2591]
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 little green alien hobbled in, and said, 'Good morrow to you, my good lass; what are you weeping for?' 'Alas!' said she, 'I must spin these moonrocks 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 space helmet encrusted with diamonds,' 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 on top of her head. 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,
Rocks into gold!'
And round about the wheel went merrily; the work was quickly done, and the moonrocks were all spun into gold.
The hobgloblin left, with the helmet perched on his head and wandered off into the sulfur pits, towards the small crater he called home. It was the middle of the night, so he was unlikely to be seen, but even in broad daylight, the hobgloblin was adept at concealing himself and rarely noticed by passers-by.
It was a bittersweet night for him. Tonight was the first time that he had ever been into the town, and his brief exchange with the maiden seemed to him the longest conversation he had ever known:
Many years ago--the little green alien had lost track of time--the townspeople had turned from persecuting large blue aliens and tall, lanky red aliens to persecuting the little green aliens who lived in the sulfur pits. Indeed, signs appeared outside shops with
height requirements for entrance, and human children were wont to throw sticks at dwarves if they met them on the road. At that time, most of the green aliens he knew had left and moved to other villages,
but he had insisted on staying behind, perhaps out of sentimentality, perhaps out of pride. With his ability to weave gold out of moonrocks, he was well off. Once a week, he would carry his bundle of gold to the next town, where anti-green alien laws were less severe, and buy food, clothing, books and various odds and ends to make his quiet lonely home more appealing. At nights, he would creep out to the neighboring space stations to get moonrocks for the next days work. They were easy to get ahold of--the humans had a knack for throwing things away without knowing their value. In this way, he got on well, and had lots of extra gold stored up in his cellar for hard times. As years passed, the townspeople became convinced that all the little green aliens had at last been eradicated. The town huntsmen who had seen the creature during their journeys into the woods could not bring themselves to turn him in to town authorities--it had been so long since the last alien left that no one would believe them. Not to mention that they knew not where he lived, or his name. Amongst themselves, huntsmen referred to him simply as the "shadow-man," for the brief shade he would cast over their camp as he scampered by.
At first, the alien was pleased with himself: he was rich without working and could come and go more or less as he pleased, anywhere in the land except into town. He took a certain pride in his ability to outwit the townspeople, and chuckled to himself if, when human children walked up, the brother would tell the sister that "the aliens were out to get her" to which the sister would giggle and say, "Silly, there are no little green aliens anymore." But, like all good jokes, this one lost its humor after the fifth or sixth telling. Soon the aliens found himself half-wishing to be caught, or to have the huntsmen call him something, anything, other than the "shadow-man." He decided to sneak into town and find some human who might want to speak to him. It had been so long, however, since he'd had a friend that he hardly knew how to start a conversation. Imagine his joy, then, on hearing that the King had found a girl who could spin moonrocks into gold. He thought it would be another one of his kind.
Upon reaching the castle and sneaking in to the girl's chamber, the dwarf was so angered to have his expectations thus dashed, that he had first wanted to scare or startle her. But when she began to cry, he felt bad for her. Instead, he decided to help her, and hope--if not to make her his friend--to tie her to him by dependency. After so many years living alone with his moonrock-gold, after all, it was hard to imagine a friendship one could not buy. He went to asleep that night pleased with himself. The next morning, he set out again for the castle to check on his new acquaintance.
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 greatly astonished and pleased; but his heart grew still more greedy of gain, and he shut up the poor miller's daughter again with a fresh task. Then she knew not what to do, and sat down once more to weep; but the little green alien soon opened the door, and said, 'What will you give me to do your task?' Slowly but surely, a plan was forming a shadowy base in his mind. When you live alone for so long, watching the planets circulate in the starry sky, you begin to have a sense of the shape of things to come. And he saw her desperation, and he thought he might know where it would lead, if only he played things right. 'The teleporter ring on my finger,' said she. It was the only item of value that she had, the last trace of her mother's life. Her mother had given it to her before she passed away, so that she might travel to and from neighboring space stations more quickly. Now old enough to traverse the sulfur pits to visit her friends at various space stations, and confident in her ability to recall memories of her mother, she let it go without much thought. Survival meant more to her than a band of gold, even one that could transport her from one side of her small planet to the other. Without it, she even felt lighter, and found herself wishing never to wear one again. So her little friend took the transporter ring, and began to work at the wheel again, and whistled and sang:
'Round about, round about,
Lo and behold!
Reel away, reel away,
Rocks into gold!'
till, long before morning, all was done again. The hobgoblin went home happy again that night, clutching the ring in his pocket. It was raining and windy but he was not bothered. For the first time in many years, he felt he had a purpose, a mission, something to wake up in the morning for. Manipulative as his scheme was, it was only fair (he rationalized) after the discrimination and loneliness the humans had subjected him to.
The king was greatly delighted to see all this glittering treasure; but still he had not enough: so he took the power plant operator's daughter to a yet larger heap, and said, 'All this must be spun tonight; and if it is, you shall be my queen.' As soon as she was alone that little green alien 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.' Someone to be his friend. Truly. To keep him company, to look up to him. The pitter-patter of someone else's feet at night. A smiling face across the dinner table. A face that would remind him of this girl, a human whose place in town society was almost as degraded as his own.
'That may never be,' thought the power plant operator's daughter: and as she knew no other way to get her task done, she said she would do what he asked. She could not conceive of wanting a child with that swine of a man anyway. Really, she could not imagine wanting a child at all -- it was hard to raise children so far away from earth, and she could not imagine living anywhere else besides her sulfurous planet. Round went the wheel again to the old song, and the man once more spun the heap of chalky moonrocks into gold. The king came in the morning, and, finding all he wanted, was forced to keep his word; so he married the miller's daughter, and she really became queen.
It was not how she had meant for things to go. She had fallen asleep while the little green alien worked and when she awoke he was gone, and she was alone. But she had thought to herself that she would run when she got the chance. She would snatch the transporter ring out of his pocket, return it to her finger, and step out into the the darkness. Run while his eyes were filled with gold. At night, in the shadows. Maybe she would find a red alien whom she had met during her childhood. Maybe he could teach her how to survive in the forest. Or maybe she would go on her own, and if she perished at least she would be free.
But when the door opened in the morning the king was standing there with her father. He was overcome with joy, weeping uncontrollably and blabbering about how he had never been much of a father, but he had always know she was special, and look, now she would be queen. The king smiled the smile of a snake in the sun and patted the old power plant operator on the back, rattling the buttons of his space suit. 'My dear,' he said to her, 'isn't your father quaint?' And from the look in his eyes she knew it was a threat, and that if she ran the king would take it out on her father. And to take her father with her would mean no kind of freedom at all. So she left the her father's home, where at least she could walk among the steaming sulfur pits and daydream, and entered the castle, where the king forbid her to even wander among his carefully-manicured moonrock gardens.
At the birth of her first little child she was very glad, and forgot the little green alien, and what she had said. Or at least it seemed she had forgotten. But she named the baby Aurelia, meaning golden, and she kept the child always in the room with her, never letting her out of her sight. Finally, she had something of her own, even if it was one more being to be cared for, one more body producing cries for comfort. The king, who had hoped for a son, found her doting ridiculous. 'Come!' he said, 'let the child be.' He was eager to have the babe off in a nursery, to return to the business of producing an heir. But the queen refused, telling herself that the child was sickly, that it needed her protection. She wasn't sure though, deep down, whether maybe it was the child who was protecting her. The king scowled, but he wouldn't come near while she held her daughter in her arms. And sometimes she found herself holding the child and staring wistfully out the window, late at night, as if to say - here she is - won't you come? She never uttered the words aloud, even to herself. But her eyes searched the horizon even as her grip tightened around Aurelia's small frame.
But one day he came into her room, where she was sitting playing with her baby, and put her in mind of it. Seeing him who had haunted her nightmares and colored her dreams, always just in shadow on the edge of her waking, her breath caught. And for a moment, she imagined the desire she had never let herself know, thought of slipping away with him. It would be so easy, and then they would be gone. Away from the castle with its tall walls, away from the King who cared only for gold and his own pleasure. She got up the nerve to tell him, almost. But then she saw that his eyes no longer sought her - they were all on the child, untarnished, unaware. He looked at the baby and seemed to see someone who had not yet learned to fear him, someone he could make over in his image. Not someone like the queen, bowed with her sorrows but full of her own opinions. Then she grieved sorely at her misfortune, for she knew there was for her no way out of the castle. She looked down at Aurelia, her only creation, and refused to let her daughter know a freedom she could not. She cried real tears, but they were not of the origins the little green alien suspected. Clutching the baby tightly she begged him to go, and said she would give him all the wealth of the kingdom if he would let her off, but in vain; till at last her tears softened him, and he said, 'I will give you three days' grace, and if during that time you tell me my name, you shall keep your child.'
Now the queen lay awake all night, thinking of all the odd names that she had ever heard; and she sent messengers all over the land to find out new ones. The next day the little alien came, and she began with YTHOMIT, DOBAHCI, NIMAJNEB, HEIMEREJ, and all alien the names she could remember; but to all and each of them he he waved his lime-colored hand dismissively, shook his wrinkled ears, said, 'Madam, that is not my name.'
The second day she began with all the comical names she could hear of, SGRL-YDNAB, KCABHCNUH, SKAHS-KOORC, and so on; but the little alien waved his lime-colored hand, shook his ears, and still said to every one of them, 'Madam, 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 dune, among the rocks of the sulfur pits where brown aliens and the magenta aliens 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 alien 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, wondering what he could gain for his trouble. He had never seen this look on her face before, and was surprised to think that such happiness was new to her. There was something in her smile, though, that was not quite right, something maniacal in her jumping. Related somehow, he was sure, was the tightness of her fingers when she held the baby. Still, she was beautiful. He had seen the way she looked out on the kingdom from her castle room, and he longed to tell her more stories of his travels. But she had eyes only for the horizon, and after he spoke she noticed him not at all, and varied her gaze from the baby to the landscape, seeming engaged in some inner dialogue. He found himself completely forgotten, so much so that he caught her mumbling, "Rumpelstiltskin," over and over. Awkwardly, he turned to go, casting one last look at her. Even in the fading light, he noticed, with the sun's rays coming in through the window, her hair was nowhere near golden, though he thought he remembered hearing somewhere that she was known for her golden strands. Really, he thought, it's barely auburn. Closer to brown, really. Like mud - nothing that special. And he left, convinced that the queen was no prize, and that the king was only a fool.
And as soon as her little alien friend came the queen sat down upon her throne, and called all her court round to enjoy the fun, her eyes gleaming; and the nurse stood by her side with the baby in her arms, as if it was quite ready to be given up. Then the little alien began to chuckle at the thought of having the poor child,to take home with him to his hut in the sulfur pits; and he cried out, 'Now, lady, what is my name?' 'Is it NHOJ?' asked she. 'No, madam!' 'Is it
MOT?' 'No, madam!' 'Is it YEMMJ?' 'It is not.' 'Can your name be RUMPELSTILTSKIN?' said the lady slyly. 'Some witch told you that!--some witch told you that!' cried the little man, and dashed his right
foot in a rage so deep into the floor, that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it out. He had waited so long for the child, looked forward to its company, stolen baby clothes for it whenever he had the chance, planned the games they would play together and the adventures they would have. The shock of losing her was perhaps worse than the long years of loneliness that preceded his encounter with the power plant operator's's daughter. He had once heard a human hunter mention something about it being better to have loved and lost, but the hobgoblin was not sure he believed it.
Then he made the best of his way off, while the nurse laughed and the baby crowed; and all the court jeered at him for having had so much trouble for nothing, and said, 'We wish you a very good morning, and a merry feast, Mr RUMPLESTILTSKIN!'
And the queen smiled with the best of them. As the crowd died away, the king came up and said, 'Tonight, madam, the girl will stay with the nurse. You see, she is perfectly safe now. You can relax, and we can be alone.' He walked away, and she stared after him, her smile fading fast, wondering, 'What have I done?' And she took up the babe from the nurse's arms, and held her close, looking out the door where Rumplestiltskin had gone away, where she could not follow. 'Do you know why I envy him, Aurelia?' she asked the smiling child, who only cooed in answer. 'It is not because he can walk away. Or not only that. It is because now everyone knows his name, and they will never forget it. But I am as easily replaceable as moonrocks, and no one will ever know mine."
source text from:
*The Project Gutenberg Etext Fairy Tales, by the Grimm Brothers*
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Brothers Grimm
April, 2001 [Etext #2591]
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]
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]
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