Ever play telephone? It’s a game that people like to play you stand in a long line. The person at the head whispers something into the next person’s ear. Then that person whispers it to the next person’s ear. That goes on until the last person hears it and says it aloud. At this point in time everyone would be required to laugh or snicker, simply because the story got so changed in the process, like “The sky is blue” would be changed to “Blue dinosaurs are cool.”
This is what happens with many stories before people wrote them down. Different people would tell the stories, but the story would change with each recitation. The story would change in time to fit the cultural needs at the time of its telling. Such as with Beowulf, it became Christen when the Christen religion came to England. This is also seen in real life. For example, you’re telling a story about something really cool you did. Every time to you tell the story, the task becomes more difficult, and your completion so much more awe inspiring. It happens.
For example, you run a marathon race for school. The first few times you tell the story, it will be almost completely factual. However, after that the story will twist and change. The marathon becomes not one mile, but five. You also twist your ankle in the middle, but you keep going to try and help the people in the charity that got added into your narrative. Then rabid wild dogs chase you and you have to outrun them on your twisted ankle. Stuff like that. Don’t stare at me like that, it happens.
This happened with Beowulf, so it probably happened with a lot of other fairy tales, such as Rumpelstiltskin.
I’ve got a little book I like, it’s called The Rumpelstiltskin Problem by Vivian Vande Velde. Read it some time, it’s quite intriguing. Anyways, she found a problem with Rumpelstiltskin and ranted on the problems she had had with the story before offering up six alternate versions of the story.
I admit, after her ranting I got curious about the original story, yeah I read it as a child quite some time ago. However I’d forgotten most of it, so I went for a refresher course. I have to admit, it was quite a bit more moronic then she portrayed it to be in her ranting. Ergo, I decided to rant and offer my alternate of the story. I’ve been fiddling with this story for a good while.
The story starts off with describing the miller as poor and the daughter beautiful. Classic, so classic I needed to prevent myself from throwing up at the cliché start off, at least they didn’t do “Once upon a time,” that would have killed me. The heroine is always beautiful and the father is poor or she’s ill-treated and beat on by her step mother since her mother died, her father remarried and died. Just the classics you know. Also, her mother was missing, again, too classic. Did she die or something? I mean what happened to her? Why do these girls never have a proper mother?
Then the father tells the king that his daughter can spin straw into gold. That’s just silly. Why would you brag like that, to the king? And why was he talking to the king in the first place? Certainly a king would be far too busy for a poor miller. Then the king believes him and tells the miller to bring her to the castle the next day. Why would a king believe him, seriously? Is this the kingdom of the totally stupid?
So the miller brings his daughter to the castle to spin straw into gold. That doesn’t sound very smart. He should know that she can’t. If she lied to him, this would be where I’d say that I lied. So she gets pent up in this room with a lot of straw and a spinning wheel. The king says that she must spin or die.
Wow. Great nice benevolent ruler that you’d definitely want to tell a major lie to; like the miller did. NOT. I don’t want him as my king. So, the girl starts weeping and sobbing because she knows at least that she can’t perform such a magical trick. A little man walks into the room through the door. A door that should be guarded and locked so she can’t escape and no one can get in through. How’d he manage to stroll right in? Maybe this is the kingdom of the stupid, leaving a poor girl on death roe on her honor system to not escape, and she could have escaped instead of crying. Should have tried the door, lass.
So he says he’ll spin the straw into gold, but he needs something. What does she offer? A freaking necklace. Why would a little man want a necklace if he can spin straw into gold? But he does want a necklace as he takes it to spin the straw. Perhaps he’s a cross dresser in secret.
The king gets greedy the next day, as expected, and locks her up in a bigger room the next night. The offer still stands, spin or die. Wonderful. I’m in love with the king already. The girl starts to cry, again, not terribly productive. She should have realized that since the door had to have been unlocked the night before perhaps she should try to escape. But she doesn’t and the little man shows up again. He takes a tiny gold ring from her to spin with. Again, why would he want the ring if he can spin straw into gold? (Miller couldn’t have been that poor in the first place to keep the girl in jewelry anyways) Still he does so, and in the morning the king gets more greedy and wants more. Wow, shocking, totally not normal. But this is where it gets strange, this time he says spin and you’ll be my wife.
Man, I’d fall in love with a guy like that instantly. Spin or die twice, such a sweet talker. Those are probably all the words I’ve ever heard from him too. Sweet guy, very romantic. The miller’s daughter says yes, obviously more thrilled about the idea then me. Then again, she’d be from poor miller’s daughter to queen. She’s so not motivated by greed. They make a great modest couple.
The little man shows up again to spin for her. She says she can’t give him anything, so he says he’ll do it for the promise of her firstborn child. If that was me, I’d want to know why and what purpose the child would serve, and even then I wouldn’t say yes. But this isn’t me, it’s the daughter of a miller in the kingdom of the really really dumb. She agrees without question. Then again, she’s had to look up to her father for parenting skills, so she probably doesn’t know any better, i.e. the lying to the king and bringing her to the castle and never being mentioned again. The little man works his magic once more.
So they have a happy marriage. My main question is why the king did not require her to spin more straw into gold afterwards. I mean it. That’s why she’s his queen, right? Why doesn’t he force her to spin more often? Anyways, I should continue.
After her first child has been born the little man comes back. The girl starts to weep and beg for her child’s life. Although the contract all that time ago was crystal clear, “Room of straw for your first born child,” the little man has a generous change of heart. (So would I, but still...) He says he’ll spare the child, if and only if she can guess his name in three days. So, what if she doesn’t get it? What else does he get besides the one kid? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Also, why didn’t she learn his name beforehand when he was spinning straw into gold for her? Couldn’t she have asked? I guess manners lack in the kingdom of dumb along with brainpower.
She doesn’t get it for two days straight and is the only one guessing. The king doesn’t care about the kid. Maybe he’s off in some war or something because he’s never mentioned again for the remaining length and breadth of the story. On the third day one of the messengers returns saying that he couldn’t find any names, but a weird little man parading around a campfire like an idiot singing a song. A weird, lame, moronic song. It ended with, “that Rumpelstiltskin am I styled.” Like I said: weird. Though anyone with half a brain would figure that he meant, “Rumpelstiltskin is my name”. Kingdom of the seriously idiotic here. (In that song it also implied that he wanted to eat the kid...well, now we have a purpose) Now why did he do that? Because if he sung another song, like The Squeegee Hunt or was telling ghost stories to himself, the story would end unhappily. Obviously.
So the queen toys with the little man for a while before saying his name. Then he cracks the ground in his anger.
Wait, what?
A man always described as little broke through a stone floor...what was it, obsidian or some brittle rock? (although that’s an oxymoron) Maybe it’s more magic power. Hell, I don’t freaking know. Then in a case of “Well-I’ll-show-them-that-I’m-better-then-them” he tears himself in two.
Bam! WTF? -sounds of cars crashing in background-
I needed to read that five times to make sure I hadn’t read wrong. What would your teacher say if you handed in a story like that? Well, unless it was for how weird, stupid, and basic your story could be, I’d think a C- would be generous. (The only better way to get a good grade with that story is to be in the third grade and writing this) More descriptions are a requirement, along with some more common sense. This rant is probably longer than the original fairytale.
Now I offer, wearing a headband from an anime series and being a general geek, an eleventh grade B- (at least) revision on this classic fairytale. Only because my brain would have exploded otherwise.
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