Once upon a time there was an impoverished, yet kind and beautiful young girl. Or, at least that's what her opinion of herself was.
In reality, she was quite well off, and more than a little selfish, when it came to material goods. Despite her father's moderate wealth, the two of them struggled to feed each other because of the girl's many credit card bills and her father's huge gambling debts. And, according to her, who needs to eat, when you can buy yourself a new pair of stilettos.
So, let's face it, neither of them were very smart.
But, one day good fortune arrived in the form of a goblin, who showed up at their house during the middle of the night. He refused to reveal his name, but he promised to help her get properly rich again.
"Goblin, return tomorrow. I shall think about it," the girl told the creature. In actual fact, she had already made up her mind; now all that remained was to consider all the ways that she could cheat the goblin out of his money.
And, although she was rather gullible and naïve; she was also very sneaky, in her own way.
"It's a dream come true, Father. This fool promises to make us rich, and he asks for no payment. Imagine how many shoes I will be able to buy," the girl said, once the goblin was out of earshot.
Her father, however, was sceptical; "He's a lone shark, if I ever saw one."
But his words went unheard, because of course; his daughter had already made her decision.
The next day, the goblin returned, asking for her answer.
"My answer is yes, you may work for me," the girl said insolently.
The goblin bowed humbly, glaring at her out of the corner of his eyes.
You may ask why he went into her service, if he so obviously hated having to do so. Well, the answer to that is:
Twist #1: The goblin was actually the girl's father's, brother's, uncle's, grandfather's friend of a friend. And her had the same gambling debts as the girl's father, which had to payed off by doing this stupid bet. If he could work for the little whelp for a year –without killing her- then his debts would be cleared.
Later that week, the goblin strolled out of the girl's house, after eating his third breakfast for that day.
"He's eating us out of house and home," the father moaned, tugging at his already thinning hair.
"Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea after all," the girl murmured, to quiet to be heard. But she was too stubborn to give up now, when so much wealth was almost within her grasp.
Ah, how gullible are the greedy.
However, a week later, the goblin finally came through. He showed the girl how to spin grass into gold thread.