Once upon a time, a poor miller had a beautiful daughter. To impress the king, he boasted, "My daughter can spin straw into gold."
The king, intrigued, summoned the girl and locked her in a room full of straw. "Spin this into gold by morning," he ordered, "or you will die." Terrified and helpless, the girl began to cry.
Suddenly, a little man appeared. "Why do you cry?" he asked.
"I must spin straw into gold, but I don't know how," she replied.
"What will you give me if I do it for you?" he asked.
"My necklace," she offered.
The little man took the necklace, sat at the spinning wheel, and with a whirring sound, filled spool after spool with gold by dawn.
The king was delighted but grew greedier. He locked the girl in a larger room with more straw, demanding the same task. Again, the little man appeared. This time, the girl gave him her ring, and he spun all the straw into glistening gold.
Still unsatisfied, the king presented a third, even larger room. "Spin this, and you shall be my queen," he declared. When the little man returned, the desperate girl had nothing left to offer. "Then promise me your first child when you are queen," he demanded. Seeing no alternative, she agreed.
The next morning, the king married her, and she became queen.
A year later, she had a child. The little man returned to claim his prize. The queen offered all the kingdom's wealth, but he refused, saying, "Something living is dearer to me than all the treasures in the world."
In despair, the queen wept. Taking pity, the little man gave her three days to guess his name; if she succeeded, she could keep her child.
The queen tried every name she knew, but to no avail. On the third day, her messenger reported seeing a comical little man dancing by a fire in the woods, singing:
Today I'll bake; tomorrow I'll brew,
Then I'll fetch the queen's new child.
It is good that no one knows,
Rumpelstiltskin is my name!
When the little man returned, the queen asked, "Is your name Rumpelstiltskin?"
"The devil told you that!" he shrieked in rage. He stomped his right foot so hard that he sank into the ground up to his waist. Then, seizing his left foot, he ripped himself in two.