Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin

Rump returns home empty-handed and tells Gran that he must not have found enough gold in the mines to earn rations. Gran wants to confront the miller, but she lacks the strength to leave the cottage. Without the grain from the mill, Gran and Rump are forced to eat one of their two chickens. Over the melancholy meal, Rump demands to know why Gran kept secrets about his mother and her spinning. Gran answers, “Your mother spun trouble [...] and then left it on my hands” (51). Rump’s questions make it clear that he’s used the spinning wheel to turn straw into gold. Tearfully, Gran tells her grandson that she loves him and that she will try to protect him from the sorrow that the spinning wheel caused his mother.

That night, Rump has a nightmare about his mother and the spinning wheel. At first, she appears happy as she turns straw into gold, but she grows fearful as she continues to spin. The room fills with gold, and Rump’s mother looks “panicked, like she was submerged in water and didn’t know how to swim” (52). Eventually, the gold buries her.

On the next rations day, Rump briefly admires the snow before remembering that winter’s arrival means “cold and hunger—more hunger than usual” (53). Their only remaining chicken stops laying eggs, and their goat barely produces milk. As usual, the miller’s sons bully Rump as he toils in the mines. Rump’s one comfort is that the pixies are no longer pestering him because they have begun to hibernate. Although Rump finds more gold than usual in the mines that week, the miller again turns him away without rations.

When Rump returns home, he sees that Gran has fallen ill with a fever and is too weak to speak. Not knowing where else to turn for help, he runs to Red’s house. Red and her mother try to make Gran comfortable, but the pitying assurances from Red’s mother only increase Rump’s alarm. Rump thinks he has no choice but to trade the gold he spun for food. Red urges him not to, and she and Rump argue.

The next day, Rump takes three skeins of gold to the mill. Although the skeins are worth far more, the miller gives him only two sacks of grain in exchange. Rump finds himself unable to voice any protest against the unfair bargain, “as if the gold were pressing down on [his] tongue” (59). Rump returns home and cooks for Gran, but she barely touches the food. Over the next three days, her condition deteriorates. Rump passes the time by telling Gran all the stories she’s taught him. Lastly, he tells Gran about his incomplete name, the magical power he inherited from his mother, and his uncertain destiny. With her final words, Gran tells Rump to spin gold in his heart.

Rump is too numb to cry when Gran dies or when she is buried, but he weeps when he returns to the empty cottage. He devours a loaf of bread from Red’s mother and then carries all the gold he spun to the miller. In exchange, he receives a few pounds of potatoes. Although Rump wants to upbraid the miller for being “a lying, cheating, despicable, heartless villain” (64), he makes no protest at this unjust trade. Over the next four months, Rump continues to spin straw into gold in exchange for meager rations from the miller. During this time, Rump’s only visitor is Red, who occasionally shares food with him. Rump believes that this empty, emotionless existence may have gone on forever if someone hadn’t come to the Village seeking “a certain kind of gold” (65).

In the spring, the villagers gather in the square for an unprecedented event, a visit from the king himself. Secretly, Rump thinks of King Bartholomew Archibald Reginald Fife as King Barf. No longer impressed by the sight of gold, the boy looks at the royal in his golden armor and likens him to “a pink pig with a crown on his head” (68). The king has a piece of Rump’s golden thread, which was brought to him by one of his royal advisors. Thinking that the villagers have been withholding riches from him, the king orders his soldiers to search for any trace of the golden thread. Red hits Rump because these inspections are the consequence of his actions. Fearing imprisonment, Rump gathers all of the bits of gold from his cottage and tries to hide them in the woods. However, a swarm of pixies draws the king’s attention to the boy, and Rump drops one of the loops of golden thread.

To Rump’s astonishment, the miller claims that his daughter, Opal, spun the straw into gold using magic. King Barf distrusts magic because he dislikes “anything that might have more power than he did” (74). The king decides to take the miller’s daughter to his castle, promising to reward her if the miller’s words are true and to punish her with either death or imprisonment if they prove false. After the royal procession departs with Opal, the miller hides his face in his hands, suggesting that he regrets his hasty action and fears that he’s sent his daughter to her doom. Although Rump detests the greedy man, he wants to help Opal. Rump blames himself for her predicament and for the rest of the trouble that the spinning wheel has caused. He realizes that the Witch of the Woods may be the only person who can help him now.