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Rumplestiltskin
by Scott Teel
A man in the village was so proud of his teenage daughter that he bragged about her all the time, and he exaggerated a little sometimes. “My teenage daughter Wilhelmina is so wonderful, she can do almost anything,” he told his pub friends one day, in a drunken stupor. “She could like chuck a car over a cow. She can make a new crater on the moon whenever she wants, all she needs is a ear ‘a corn…I love you guys, have I told you that lately?...Love ya! … ‘nother brew bartenner…My daughter Wilhelmina, she can like, spin straw into gold. Totally cool to see. I gotta go ta da can…”
The father’s boasting eventually made it back to the king of the land, and he called for the man and his daughter.
“Hi, welcome to the castle, make yourself comfy,” said the king. “Can I get anyone a drink? I have Mr. Pibb.”
The father and daughter politely declined, and the king got down to business. “So I hear that you can spin straw into gold, Wilhelmina,” he said.
“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Wilhelmina.
Her father jumped in. “Uh…I’ll handle this honey--”
“I know your father wouldn’t have lied about this and wasted my time,” remarked the king, “because I’d have his head and body separated very quickly, you know, gotta keep the peasants in their place, don’t want a lot of lying going on.”
“Yeah! She can spin straw into gold, can’t you honey?” her father said. “See, she nodded, that was a nod. But we should be going, big day of indentured servitude tomorrow you know, so--”
The king thought. “Mmmmmmmmm…no,” he said. “My thinking is that you go home and your daughter goes in the tower and spins straw into gold for me, or I’ll cut off your head for lying. Your family can keep the head, but I want the hair to sell to the Hair Club for Men. That way, everyone wins.”
And so, Wilhelmina was whisked away to the tower by guards and given a ton of hay to turn to gold with only a spinning thing. You know, with the wheel and foot-pedal.
After they left, she collapsed dramatically to the floor and cried, “What shall I do? If I don’t turn this straw into gold, my father’s hair will be on someone else! Oh, and he’ll be dead, too.” And she wept and wept, because she knew that straw doesn’t turn to gold like lead does. Suddenly, in a poof, an ugly little troll appeared.
“Aha!” he cried, “Baby, I can make all your problems disappear, but you’ll have to promise me your first-born child…which kind of means you’ll have a new problem, but think in the short term here.”
“Who are you?” Wilhelmina asked.
“Uh, I don’t want to be properly introduced yet for reasons which will become obvious later.”
“Oh. So you will spin this into gold if I agree? Okay, I agree. There’s always some catch to get the maiden out of trouble.”
And so the ugly little troll sat at the spinner and spun all the straw into gold. “Remember our deal,” he said. “I am the one…but the kid is not my son!” And he vanished.
The king was so happy with the golden thread that he allowed his son to marry Wilhelmina. Six months later, they had their first baby, a boy. That night as Wilhelmina rocked the child to sleep, the little troll appeared to her again. “Little help,” he said, arms outstretched.
“Um, how about I say no and you go away forever?” she asked him.
“Tell you what, welcher,” the troll said. “I’ll give you three days to guess my name. You guess right, you keep the kid. If not, I take him and he becomes Rumplestiltskin, Jr. Whoops.”
“What was that last part?”
“Nothing, never mind,” he replied. “Three days, startiiinnnnnnng…now!” And he vanished. Wilhelmina racked her brain for two days, she even took every baby-name book out of the library, but how could she pick one name that a troll might have?
 On the second night, she looked out the window and saw a little campfire in the distance. Thinking for some reason that a troll who could vanish at will would inexplicably camp out and sing his name loudly near her castle, she went toward the fire and hid. She was right. The troll danced and sang, “She’ll never guess my name! She’ll never guess Rumplestiltskin is my name, my nom de plum, my moniker, my identificationary word, ha ha ha! Rumplestiltskin! Let me shout it really loudly just for the heck of it, though the castle is right over there...RUMPLESTILTSKIN!”
Wilhelmina snuck back to her castle and made some waffles; she was in the mood for them, no one says you can’t have waffles at 11PM, it’s not a rule. Next night, the troll appeared. “Well? What’s your guess, huh? You’ll never guess it. Oh, hurry, I can’t wait to tell you!”
“I call thy name: Rumplestiltskin!” she cried.
The troll was quiet for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Ha! Wrong-o! You think I’d really sit out there yelling my name? What do I look like, an idiot? My name is Bob Smith. Let’s go, make with the baby.”
And so, a new troll was raised and he one day would dye his hair bright pink and poof it up and start a craze that continues to this very day.
The Moral of the Story Is: Those troll dolls are so annoying.
© 2005 Scott Teel
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