Rumpelstiltskin makes no sense

And also, as a kid, I thought his brother was Rumpole of the Bailey.

He wanted a baby for the deduction of his tax return, dummy.

^^^ on

Just a mean little dwarf.

Because that's the only possession she had. She wasn't a rich bitch.

But she didn't have the baby yet. It was a deal for a future baby. But yes I can see that it would be "logical" for the imp to assume the girl would not be barren in the future. I am surprised he wasn't more into breast milk TBH.

It's weird that I barely remember that story

He’s a pedo.

He wanted a baby because he was lonely.

He lived to make deals, and that’s all she had left to offer since The Rump didn’t pump the pussy, if you catch my drift.

OP, in fairytales and mythology there are creatures like Anansi, Loki, Rumplestiltskin, Eris, and others who lived to prank, confuse, scam, and generally sow discord among human beings.

Why he might want the child is never revealed or explained. Given his powers (breaking and entering into the chamber where the king, no less, has managed to imprison the miller’s daughter), his magical abilities, and his mysteriousness (nobody seems to know his name, and it’s only discovered because of his own big mouth), why didn’t he just come in and snatch the child? Not only does he not do so, but he even gives the queen another opportunity to wriggle out of their deal, by guessing his name. Is this hubris?

Certainly the three male characters in the story – the miller, the king, and Rumpelstiltskin himself – are too cocky for their own good, in many ways. The miller is so proud of his daughter that he exaggerates her abilities; the king, being the monarch, thinks he can command anyone to perform his oddest whim; and the little goblin scuppers his own scheme by cockily dancing about yelling his own name within earshot of the queen’s servants.

The patterning of three is very important in many fairy tales: there are three bears, three bowls of porridge, and three beds in the ‘Goldilocks’ story, for instance. In ‘Rumpelstiltskin’, the miller’s daughter is locked up and commanded to spin straw into gold three times before she marries the king; once she is queen, she has three days to guess the name of her odd little helper. This is a good narrative technique, of course, and repetition is very important in primal stories such as fairy tales.

So the story may in part be about something that preoccupied the ancient Greeks in their greatest tragedies: man’s hubris, or the dangers of overconfidence, of over-reaching yourself.

But equally, ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ may have its roots in our early agricultural development. The central motif of the story, of course, is the idea of being able to spin straw into gold. Straw is useless as food for humans, but gold can buy food – or, indeed, can be viewed as a symbol for food, specifically grain. Is the fairy tale of ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ fundamentally about something that has concerned human beings throughout much of our history: namely, the desire for a good harvest?

Both the miller and his daughter are prepared to sacrifice their child for it: thus three generations of the same family, spanning both the relatively lowly and the highest in the land (the miller’s daughter being but one of many upward-climbers seen in the pages of classic fairy tales), are all implicated in this drive for individual sacrifice in order to bring forth gold from straw. Here, the miller’s occupation (someone who works with grain) takes on new significance.

Given Rumpelstiltskin’s supernatural qualities, the fairy tale becomes a kind of variation on the notion of making a sacrifice to the gods in return for the promise of a good harvest. In this analysis, it is significant that he is both defied and destroyed by the mortal queen at the end of the narrative: it’s as if humanity is outgrowing its reliance on the gods, although this may be too optimistic, or fanciful, an interpretation of such an ancient tale.

To use as a slave once it grows up, of course.

Because that baby would bring $30,000 on the black market. $50,000 if its eyes stay blue.

I think spinning straw into gold is a reference to alchemy, which has eluded every king since time began and is only possible thru magic like that possessed by Rumpel.

Get a life

Maybe Rumpie is an old frau like Anderson Cooper and was feeling maternal?

He thought that promise would be the most meaningful (and painful) to the girl, to have to give up her child. It was the highest price he could force her to pay.

The rich entertaining themselves by toying with the poor.

WHET our own Rumpy?

Is Tammy still alive and with him?

Who is the DL Rumpy? I know we have tons of trolls but also dancing imps?

No one creates illustrations like this anymore. It’s a damn shame.

Well, I suppose there are people who are capable, but publishers prefer pablum now.

All DLers were once dancing imps. Albeit a very long time ago.

Some cultures eat live babies for rejuvenation. YUM YUM!

He had a craving for ribs.

He's a crypto Jew and the stoy is a blood libel myth.

OP the unfortunate answer is that in the era the story was created, Rumplestilskin would have been understood to be a standin for Jews who were rumored to want gentile babies for their rituals.

R26 beat me by a minute

[quote]He lived to make deals

As in [italic]The Art of the Deal[/italic]? That loser will be hearing from my lawyers, bigly.

There's probably more fairy tales with baby thieves but I can't think of any...except Labyrinth starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly.

[quote] Rumpelstiltskin makes no sense

It makes as much sense as obnoxious fat children eating a witch’s house, or another repulsive child greedily stealing porridge from a family of bears.

He's in cahoots with Hilary. THE EMAILS!!!!!

Remember the olden days when evil dancing imps could extort babies from queens?

Why do dwarves wear leotards? Shouldn't they wear something more fecund? Since they come from the enchanted forest don't they?

R20, he's probably 55 fat and friendless by now

I always thought it was just because the baby was what she valued most in the world.

[quote] To use as a slave once it grows up, of course.

Surprisingly that doesn't work so well in practice.

[quote] So why did Rumpelstiltskin want a baby?

So he could convert her to Scientology.

[quote]Remember the olden days when evil dancing imps could extort babies from queens?

If only!

R12 that was an interesting analysis.

All legends and myths have multiple meanings added to them over the ages, like the Jewish angle pointed out in r26 . Some meanings are etiological, specific to each age and people.

Comparative mythology needs to be bolstered by comparative history. Anyway, how exciting.

Because his biological clock was ticking and he couldn't have children of his own due to a botched hysterectomy and a complete lack of ovaries. Plus he wasn't getting any younger and if he wanted to be a parent it was now or never. He saw his chance and took it!

Trumpelshitskin

Rumpledforeskin?

Rumpelshtiltshkin!

If a little leotarded guy popped out of nowhere and I was locked in the room I probably would toss him on a pile of straw just for fun.

He owned a pizza restaurant with a basement in Washington D.C. and always needed new inventory.

To bathe in its blood. Duh.

I think Richard Wagner picked up on this "Ugly Dwarf-Thing Stealing a Child" in his opera Siegfried. Here's a picture of Mime the Nibelung feeding a young Siegfried:

R48 that's a butch child.

R49 - Well, he *did* grow up to look like this:

Sorry! Stinky linky.

LMAO, R51

I would consult either Maria Tartar or Jack Zipes, both are prominent Folklore academics that write very accessibly for a general audience.

Rumpelstiltskin has narcissistic personality disorder and feels the need to manipulate and control young women. His dark triad personality makes him wanna see the lady squirm and possibly to torture both mother and child. He was not loved by his parents. He overeats behind the oven in the castle kitchens.

The original story is Rump (his nickname and one you gays are sure to love) wants a baby because he is a little ogre. He wants the baby to make a little ogre out of him. That is the way ogres reproduce, so to speak.

Legend has it that "Papa Don't Preach" was written from Rumpelstiltskin's POV.

This fairy tale doesn't work in today's post-factual society anymore.

The miller's daughter would just claim that the straw is actually gold to her, would report Rumpelstiltskin as an illegal to the king, and would then die of "just like the flu" covid...

"Rumpelstiltskin" comes out of years of European medieval and early modern folklore, which often imagined the fairy folk in many different forms (usually of small people hiding in the woods) stealing away normal human children, sometimes by replacing them with changelings.

This had to do with many things: the fear of the woods and the dark; the regular discovery of relics from little-understood precursor cultures (the Romans, the Celts, the Germanic tribes, etc.) that seemed more sophisticated--and thus magical--to the common folk of these periods; and the fear of children being stolen away.

Trumpianshitstain.

R11 to be fair, Eris had a few good points.

R53 j’adore the writing of Zipes. It’s always a pleasure digging into his radical theories & analysis. His ‘Don’t Bet On The Prince’ is a fantastic read.

He's a gay, in fact he looks like Secretary Mayor Pete, and he just needed to buy a baby.

We need to reclaim Rumpelstiltskin as a queer icon.

He was the first baby trader

R62 oh you beitch! I love you. Marry me.

What's his name? Rumpelstiltskin wants us to find out. Naming names. Adopting names. Changing names. Flipping labels. There are other queer themes. Yes, Rumpelstiltskin is our queer icon or should be.

But why "reclaim"? Was he ever our icon? Tell me.

I get him mixed up with Rapunzel, which I don't think makes a lot of sense either.

It’s a story of male oppression of females. The daughter is an innocent victim of a pathological liar father, a greedy king and a blackmailer. She must rise above the oppressors using her wits and nothing else. In some stories the queen follows rumplestiltskin. In some she sends her staff— ladies — to find the imp. In the one where she sends her staff, it shows that women who stick together can overcome the patriarchy.

Here's another take after the queer and the feminist. It's about barter and the transition to a money economy. It becomes a lesson about greed as money supplants the human and natural nature of traditional economy with an abstract transaction.

It's a pretty weird story. The King tells the Miller's daughter that if she doesn't spin the straw into gold, she will die, and then after she accomplished the goal, he marries her.

Speaking of anti-Semitism, it reminds me of an Urban Legend I heard as a kid. It was about a white kid who needed to use the restroom in a supermarket in a black area. The boy didn't return and was found on the floor with his penis hacked off by black gang members who were being indoctrinated into a gang. The entire concept has it's roots in circumcision and it was previously a Christian child venturing into a Jewish community. There was a similar story in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

R68 ew! Did the poor child live in the urban legend? And now I need to google Chaucer!

Another interpretation besides the market economy, feminism, and the queer is imperial power play. Being able to name a place, people, or person asserts dominance and possession. Like "America", giving biblical names to Sami children, New York New Amsterdam and so on. It's also the underlying reason why, say Jews, anglicize their names. Rumpelstiltskin rebels and revels in not disclosing his name, asserting his independence.

In addition to the anti Semitic overtones, hiding his name is closet-like behavior.

He thinks himself so clever that no one could discover his secret.

But society finds him out, and he’s destroyed.

[quote]Rumplestilskin would have been understood to be a standin for Jews who were rumored to want gentile babies for their rituals.

If the story is thousands of years old then it would have been told before Jews were even a blip on anyone's radar.

All men are evil imps.

He’s the small foreign faction.

Is it true that in original folklore fairies are the size of regular humans and that they delight in tormenting them?

Does anyone remember the cartoon where Elmer Fudd is King of the Elves? Sylvester the cat turns his elves into mice by saying Jehoshaphat and the only way to turn them back into elves is saying Rumpelstiltskin.

I forget. How does she guess Rump's name correctly? Fairy godmother?

R77, in Faerie Tale Theatre's version, a miniature unicorn led the Queen to Rumpelstiltskin's house where he was throwing a drunken, rip-snortin' party...and she overheard some old little person say his name.

She spies him dancing and singing about how clever he is around his campfire in the woods. Bragging how the princess will never guess Rumpelstiltskin! So, basically he told her his name himself...dumbass

Fairies, imps and other forest elemental are mischievous. They are little beings in most cases and can usually shapeshift and perform some magic.