Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin

The children return to the Village. The fierce Red is unusually apprehensive, prompting Rump to realize that Red is worried for him and that she is his “one true friend” (92). Looking at the gift from the witch, Rump contemplates how both he and the tiny seed are underdogs who have to try their best anyway. Together, he and Red plant the seed outside his cottage. Rump and his obstinate donkey, Nothing, leave the Village and begin their descent down the Mountain.

Rump’s journey to the King’s City takes much of the night, and his lofty ideas of heroism deflate as he observes the stone wall and the heavily armed soldiers guarding the castle. A cart loaded with straw for Opal rolls up to the castle wall, and Rump hides in the straw. When the cart is unloaded, Rump tumbles to the floor. Thinking that he is a thief, a housekeeper attacks him with a poker. Rump escapes out the window and hides in a thorn bush. Reasoning that Opal would be kept somewhere near an abundance of straw, Rump climbs the tower nearest the stable. His hunch is proven correct when he hears Opal crying inside.

Rump climbs through the window, and the girl mocks her unassuming rescuer before bursting into fresh tears. Her despair turns to hope when Rump shows Opal that he can spin straw into gold. As before, the curse forces him to accept whatever people offer him in exchange, and he’s relieved when Opal offers him her gold necklace. Rump finishes the spinning at sunrise and then hides in the royal stables. Before he drifts off to sleep, Rump promises never to spin straw into gold again.

Bored and hungry, Rump spends the next day hiding in the stables. He hopes to return home when night falls, but he overhears servants gathering more straw for Opal and realizes that the miller’s daughter is still in danger. When he climbs the tower that night, the pile of straw that awaits him is thrice the size of what he spun the night before. Opal offers him a gift from her late mother, a ring bearing an opal that is “shiny white with swirls of purple and blue” (109). He feels guilty about taking the ring, but the magic requires a bargain.

Rump spins all night and descends from the tower in the morning, starving and sore. A servant spots him on his way back to the stables and forces him to join a line of people carrying cartloads of straw into the castle. He wonders if this is his destiny, “to spin gold at the whims of a greedy king for the rest of [his] life” (111). Exhausted, Rump hides under a pile of straw and falls asleep.

Rump emerges from the pile of straw, and Opal berates, mocks, and threatens him as he starts spinning. The king has promised to make her queen if she turns all the straw in the enormous chamber into gold, and she’s already putting on royal airs. Even after hours of work, the remaining straw towers over the boy “like a beast prepared to swallow [him] whole” (115).

When Rump completes the spinning, he realizes that he forgot to make a bargain with Opal. At first, the miller’s daughter refuses to offer him anything, but the magic prevents her from holding the gold until she gives Rump something in exchange. Rump tells her, “You can give me anything, anything you know is yours. I’m not asking for your firstborn child” (117). However, Opal latches onto the idea and hastily promises him her firstborn child. On the one hand, she believes that she might never have children and so never have to keep her promise. On the other, she thinks that she may have so many children that she won’t mind parting with one. Footsteps approach the door, and Opal hurries Rump toward the window. Rump falls from the tower, badly injuring himself.

Martha, one of the king’s cooks, tends to the injured Rump. When he regains consciousness, he hears Martha and her son, Helmut, discussing the king’s plans to marry Opal the next day. Rump tells Martha that his name is Robert. The woman is as garrulous as she is kind, and she tells Rump that magic only causes problems and that “[g]old won’t feed a kingdom” (124). While King Bartholomew hoards gold, his people suffer from a scarcity of food caused by poor growing conditions and the dwindling supply of gold from the Mountain, which is the kingdom’s most important export. Martha insists on sending a message to Rump’s mother explaining his whereabouts and condition. Instead of explaining that his mother is dead, Rump has the message sent to Red.

Unless Rump can find a stiltskin, the curse will force him to take Opal’s firstborn child—and any others she may offer him. Rump fears that a miserable destiny awaits him and imagines himself “holding a dozen crying babies and trying to spin a mountain of straw into gold while Opal screamed at [him] to hurry up because she’s the queen” (127). Martha urges Rump to eat and rest and then leaves to attend the royal wedding. As Rump prepares for his own departure, he wishes that he could give Martha some gold, but he decides that it’s best for him to put his spinning days behind him forever.