A curious introduction to a classic fairy story – analysed by Dr Oliver Tearle

How old exercise you think the story of Rumpelstiltskin is? It was famously included in the 1812 book Children's and Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm (a book that's better known as Grimms' Fairy Tales), but many of the tales written down by the German siblings were of a considerable vintage by and so.

The surprising thing is that the story of Rumpelstiltskin – albeit nether a different name – is idea to be some 4,000 years quondam. To put that in perspective, that's over a thousand years before Homer, and roughly contemporaneous with the primeval surviving versions of the tales that comprise theEpic of Gilgamesh, widely regarded as the oldest epic.Rumpelstiltskin, in summary, is one of the earliest known narratives in Western literature.

Rumpelstiltskin: plot summary

The plot of the fairy tale tin can be summarised easily plenty. A miller has a beautiful daughter, of whom he is immensely proud. 1 day, the miller makes an empty boast to the king of the state that his daughter can spin golden out of straw; the rex, taking the miller at his give-and-take, has the miller'southward daughter taken to a chamber and told to spin all of the harbinger in the room into gold, if she values her life.

But as the poor girl is beginning to despair, the door opens and a footling man enters the bedroom. She explains her predicament to him, and he says he will spin the straw into aureate for her, if she gives him a gift. She takes off her necklace and the little man takes it, and, true to his word, spins all of the straw in the bedroom into aureate, and so leaves.

The king is delighted to run across this, but considering he is greedy, he locks the miller's daughter upwardly again with more straw. Again the fiddling homo appears, and agrees to do the same as before, only in exchange for a new souvenir. The miller's daughter gives him the ring on her finger, and he starts spinning the straw for her.

Once again, the king is delighted, but, growing greedier all the same, locks her up again, this time in a bigger room. In one case again, the mysterious dwarf-like man appears, and agrees to assistance her out in exchange for some other gift. But the miller'due south daughter, having nothing left to offer, agrees to give the little man her starting time-born kid when she is queen. Knowing she cannot succeed without his aid, she reluctantly agrees.

The king is so pleased with all of the gold that he marries the miller's daughter. When she gives birth to her first child, she forgets her promise to the little human, who appears in her chamber and reminds her of it. She begs him to release her from her hope, but he refuses. Instead, he says that if she can guess his proper name in the adjacent three days, he will let her keep her child. The queen sends out her messengers to see if anyone knows the little human being's name, merely later on the first mean solar day, they return unsuccessful.

The same occurs on the second day. But on the third 24-hour interval, i of her messengers reports that he overheard a funny-looking little man dancing with glee effectually a burn, and in his vocal he allow slip that his name is Rumpel-stilts-kin. When the fiddling man returns to the queen on the third nighttime, she tells him his proper name, and in his rage at being thwarted, he puts his foot through the flooring and promptly splits in two. Anybody lives happily ever later (except Rumpelstiltskin, who was divided over the issue).

Rumpelstiltskin: analysis

This is a pretty full summary of the plot of this curious fairy tale, which is doubtless familiar to most of united states of america. Simply where did the story come up from? As we've already established, it predated the Grimms by centuries – whole millennia, in fact. (If that doesn't make the hairs stand up up on the dorsum of your neck, read it over again until it does.) The literal meaning of the proper name 'Rumpelstiltskin' (Rumpelstilzchen in the Grimms' German version) is 'little rattle stilt', from rumpelstilt, a goblin that was rumoured to make noises by rattling posts (or stilts), like a sort of poltergeist.

But the primal story of Rumpelstiltskin predates the German tale, and its goblin-like figure, by many centuries, and is found in various cultures around the world: it seems that through a sort of convergent evolution of cultural idea and rumpelstiltskin-fairy-tale-illustrationstorytelling, different nations accept come up with strikingly like versions of the same basic narrative. Rumpelstiltskin goes under the name Tom Tit Tot in England, the wonderfully named Whuppity Stoorie in Scotland, Gilitrutt in Iceland, Joaidane جعيدان in Standard arabic, Martinko Klingáč in Slovakia, Ruidoquedito in South America. Other versions are establish in Israel, Serbia, and Japan, among others. Although individual plot details inevitably differ, the core of the story is the same as the i we know as 'Rumpelstiltskin'.

Why is the story of Rumpelstiltskin constitute across the globe, and why can information technology exist traced so far dorsum in our cultural history? The story obviously has its roots deep in the most fundamental and basic drives and emotions which are normally shared throughout humanity.

Just are those roots within us (i.eastward. through psychoanalysis of Jungian archetypes) or inside the earth around united states of america (i.e. is the story related to our struggles to establish societies and communities)? Or is it, perhaps, a bit of both?

How, moreover, should nosotros analyse or translate the intriguing title graphic symbol? Rumpelstiltskin is, equally commentators accept often noted, and every bit our plot summary above suggests, unclear in his motivation: we don't know why he miraculously turns upwards just at the correct moment (and, happily, bearing the correct skills prepare), to become the miller's daughter out of her fix. He may be motivated past greed (thus forming a sort of mirror of the king, whose greed for gold grows with each new success), and that'south why he works for her: but someone who tin can spin gold from straw probably doesn't need to lower himself by working for the odd necklace or ring. (His supernatural abilities advise that he might almost exist perceived as a kind of god – or, alternatively, every bit a demon.)

The child, though, is unlike. Yet why he might want the child is never revealed or explained. Given his powers (breaking and inbound into the chamber where the king, no less, has managed to imprison the miller'south daughter), his magical abilities, and his mysteriousness (nobody seems to know his name, and information technology's only discovered because of his own big mouth), why didn't he just come in and snatch the child? Non simply does he non do so, but he even gives the queen another opportunity to wriggle out of their deal, past guessing his proper name. Is this hubris?

Certainly the three male person characters in the story – the miller, the king, and Rumpelstiltskin himself – are likewise self for their own good, in many ways. The miller is so proud of his daughter that he exaggerates her abilities; the king, being the monarch, thinks he tin command anyone to perform his oddest whim; and the fiddling goblin scuppers his own scheme by cockily dancing about yelling his own name within earshot of the queen's servants.

The patterning of iii is very of import in many fairy tales: there are three bears, three bowls of porridge, and three beds in the 'Goldilocks' story, for example. In 'Rumpelstiltskin', the miller'south daughter is locked up and commanded to spin harbinger into aureate iii times earlier she marries the king; one time she is queen, she has three days to guess the proper noun of her odd little helper. This is a practiced narrative technique, of course, and repetition is very of import in primal stories such equally fairy tales.

So the story may in function be about something that preoccupied the ancient Greeks in their greatest tragedies: man'southward hubris, or the dangers of overconfidence, of over-reaching yourself.

Only equally, 'Rumpelstiltskin' may accept its roots in our early on agricultural development. The central motif of the story, of form, is the idea of existence able to spin straw into gold. Straw is useless as food for humans, but gilded tin can buy nutrient – or, indeed, tin can exist viewed as a symbol for food, specifically grain. Is the fairy tale of 'Rumpelstiltskin' fundamentally about something that has concerned homo beings throughout much of our history: namely, the desire for a adept harvest?

Both the miller and his daughter are prepared to sacrifice their child for it: thus iii generations of the same family, spanning both the relatively lowly and the highest in the land (the miller's girl being simply one of many upwardly-climbers seen in the pages of archetype fairy tales), are all implicated in this drive for private sacrifice in order to bring forth gold from straw. Here, the miller's occupation (someone who works with grain) takes on new significance.

Given Rumpelstiltskin'south supernatural qualities, the fairy tale becomes a kind of variation on the notion of making a sacrifice to the gods in return for the promise of a adept harvest. In this analysis, it is significant that he is both defied and destroyed by the mortal queen at the end of the narrative: it'due south as if humanity is outgrowing its reliance on the gods, although this may be too optimistic, or fanciful, an interpretation of such an ancient tale.

Many mysteries about 'Rumpelstiltskin' remain, defying analysis or explication. In summary, information technology'south a fairy tale whose central character has no clear motive, and a story which withholds its own pregnant from us. It simply exists – only it exists every bit a tape of some lost and half-forgotten primitive demand inside us, too as of that more enduring and familiar need: the demand to weave stories, to spin the gold of cracking narrative.

Delve more into the history of 'Rumpelstiltskin' and other much-loved fairy tales with Iona and Peter Opie's indispensable The Classic Fairy Tales . It contains the full texts of 24 great tales along with a detailed introduction to each of them – it is, in effect, the bible of classic fairy tales. Or you lot can continue to explore the stories backside classic fairy tales with this summary and analysis of 'The Frog Prince', our summary of the story of Jack and the beanstalk, and our assay of the Snow White fairy story.

The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough Academy. He is the author of, among others, The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers' Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Bully War, The Waste Land and the Modernist Long Poem.

Paradigm: Illustration of Rumpelstiltskin past Anne Anderson (1874-1930), via Wikimedia Eatables.