Once upon a time, there was a poor miller who had a beautiful daughter. One day, the miller was speaking with the king, and wanting to seem important, he said a very foolish thing.

"My daughter can spin straw into gold."

Now this was not true at all. But the king's eyes grew wide, because kings love gold more than almost anything. He said, "Bring her to my castle tomorrow. I should like to see this for myself."

The next day, the poor girl was led to a room piled high with straw. A spinning wheel sat in the corner. The king said, "Spin all of this into gold by morning, or things will go very badly for you." Then he locked the door and left her alone.

The girl sat down and began to cry. She had no idea how to spin straw into gold. Nobody does. It was her father's silly lie that had brought her here.

Then, all at once, the door creaked open, and in stepped a strange little man. He was no taller than a stool, with sharp eyes and clever fingers.

"Good evening, miller's daughter. Why are you crying so?"

"I must spin all this straw into gold," she said, "and I don't know how."

"What will you give me if I do it for you?" asked the little man.

"My necklace," she said. He took it, sat down at the wheel, and — whirr, whirr, whirr — three turns, and the bobbin was full of gold. He spun all night long, and by morning, every last piece of straw was gleaming gold.

When the king saw the room full of gold, he was delighted. But it only made him greedier. He led the girl to an even bigger room, piled even higher with straw, and told her to spin it all by morning.

Again she cried. Again the little man appeared. "What will you give me this time?" he asked. She gave him her ring, and again he spun all night until the room shone with gold.

But the king wanted still more. He brought her to the biggest room of all, mountains of straw reaching to the ceiling. "Spin this," he said, "and tomorrow you shall be my queen."

When the little man came a third time, the girl had nothing left to give. "Then promise me," he said, his eyes glittering, "your first child, when you are queen."

The girl thought, "Who knows if that will ever happen?" And so she promised.

She became queen, and in time, a beautiful baby was born. She had forgotten all about the little man. But one night, he appeared in her chamber.

"Now give me what you promised."

The queen was horrified. She offered him all the gold in the kingdom, but he shook his head. "A living thing is worth more to me than all the gold in the world."

The queen wept so bitterly that even the little man felt something stir in his heart. "Very well," he said. "I will give you three days. If in that time you can guess my name, you may keep your child."

The first night, the queen guessed every name she could think of. "Is it Caspar? Melchior? Balthazar?" But to each one, the little man shook his head and grinned.

The second night, she tried every unusual name she had ever heard. "Is it Sheepshanks? Laceleg? Beastrib?" But none was right.

On the third day, a messenger returned from a journey through the mountains. "I didn't find any new names," he said, "but high on a hill, I saw a tiny house, and a fire burning in front of it. A strange little man was dancing around the fire, singing —"

"Today I bake, tomorrow I brew, the next day the young queen's child I'll view! How fine that nobody can claim that Rumpelstiltskin is my name!"

That night, when the little man appeared, the queen pretended to think. "Is your name... Heinrich?"

"No!"

"Is it... Wilhelm?"

"No!"

"Could it be... Rumpelstiltskin?"

The little man's face went red. He stamped his foot so hard it went right through the floor. He shrieked and howled and spun around in a fury, and then — poof — he vanished in a cloud of smoke and was never seen again.

And the queen and her child lived happily ever after.