DISCLAIMER: I don't own the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin. If I did, would I be doing this to it, taking it and ripping it apart?
Well . . . maybe.
A/N: By popular request, here is another installment of my Flayed Fairytales. Okay. So it wasn't popular request - only one review, but hey. If one person liked it, I know I haven't failed. Please note that this is not my best work - the miller's daughter seems to have a - rather sarcastic - mind of her own.
Sometimes I think my father is an idiot. Most of the time, I know he is. After all, how dumb can you be, to tell the king that your daughter can spin straw into gold? Even if it is true, you don't go around telling people things like that. It's just not good publicity. Especially when the king is a ruthless tyrant that will stop at nothing to get you to prove that your daughter can indeed do what she claims. Sigh . . . I love my father - I only wish he were more intelligent. Or knew how to keep his mouth shut. If he was not such a braggart, I would not be here now, locked in a room full of straw.
It's not the straw itself that's bad . . . it's the fact that it keeps making me sneeze. And it's prickly - very uncomfortable to lie upon. Oh well. Tomorrow morning, if I don't produce, I get tossed out of the kingdom. Hooray! Banishment! Just what we all want. On the bright side, if I am banished, I won't have to put up with my dunderhead of a father any longer.
Drat! I swear, this castle needs to get a good exterminator. I just heard another rat moving amongst the straw. At least, I hope it was a rat. What else could be making a noise like that? A sort of humming noise. A spinning wheel sort of noise. Can rats spin?
It must not be a rat. Rats can't spin - they don't have thumbs.
Suddenly all the bogey stories my mother used to tell me when I was a child are coming back to mind. Ulp. There aren't really such things as evil fairies, are there? No -of course not. Just like Father Christmas isn't real, so are fairies not. They're imaginary. I hope.
I have to see. I need to know what it is that is making the strange noise I'm hearing. I'm going to look.
It's a little man? What? What is he doing? Is he . . . yes. I don't believe it. He's picking up the straw and spinning it into gold. I don't believe this. It's got to be a trick of the light, or something. Maybe it's from hay fever.
No. He's quite real. I can assuredly say this because he just tried to take a bite out of my leg. Great. Now things have gone from bad to worse . . . I can honestly say that this experience is worse than the time I was supposed to clean the privy, and ended up falling in. In the morning, the king will throw open this door, and find my flayed body lying here, with bite marks here and there where the little man tried to eat me. Lovely. I just feel so cheerful right now . . . I'm about to be eaten by a freaky old man who isn't even three feet tall!
Wait . . . he's not biting me. He's chewing on my apron pocket - he must be able to smell the bread crumbs that I have in there, wrapped in an old rag. How, I don't know, but he probably wants them. Either that or he wants my necklace, and why would he want something like that?
I gave him the bread crumbs. He threw them on the floor and stamped on them. Apparently, that's not what he wants. I'd better try giving him the necklace, before he chews through my apron.
That's better. He's stopped gnawing at the cloth - now he's fingering the necklace and giving me a rather funny look.
"Spin straw?" The little old man says.
"What?" I ask him. "What do you want to do?"
"Spin straw for necklace."
Oh. So he wants to spin the straw in exchange for taking my necklace. I understand. Goodness, but his English skills are horrible! They're the worst thing about him - that or the smell. He smells like spices. Really old, really manky spices.
"Er, very well. That sounds like a fair trade." I manage to say, without having to smell him.
He nods excitedly, sticks my necklace in his mouth and swallows it, much to my dismay, then begins to spin again. Slowly but surely the pile of straw decreases until all that is left are a few wisps in the corners of the room. Sitting in front of me are ten spindles full of spun gold.
The little man nods and looks up at me. "Good? Good?" He asks.
I nod, too amazed to say anything. "Very good." I manage to squeak after a moment's pause.
He bows, and before I can say higgeldy-piggeldy, disappears, taking the bad smell with him. I sigh, relieved. "Good riddance," I can't help but think. "Now I can breathe again!"
At just that moment, the king enters the room. Seeing the spools of gold on the floor, he grabs me by the arm, and leads me to another room filled with straw. "Spin this straw into gold," he commands, "Or I'll have you burned at the stake as a witch."
I sigh and roll my eyes. "Great," I mutter. "I've gone from being banished to being eaten to being burned in the course of two days. Aren't I lucky?"
The king, of course, does not answer me.
As soon as I enter the room I begin to sneeze, and don't stop until almost twelve hours later. This I know because I can watch the sun out the tiny window in this tower room, and it was dawn when I entered here and started sneezing, and now it's pitch black outside. All the stars are out.
I'd better try my hand at spinning this stuff. After all, I don't want to die without at least trying. Who knows - maybe it doesn't take any talent. Maybe my dunderhead of a father was right, and I can spin the stuff into gold.
Or maybe I've just gotten so desperate I'm willing to try anything, so long as it means that I won't be burned at the stake.
I don't want to die!
All right. Just calm down. I know that I can do this. Just concentrate. Augh! The straw
keeps breaking off in my hand! It doesn't want to spin into thread. Spin, drat you - spin!
It won't spin. I am doomed. I might as well stuff my clothes with this straw - at least then I'll burn faster. Sigh.
"Spin straw for ring?" Asks a voice at my foot.
I look down. Standing next to me is a little old woman, who is pointing at the ring hanging on a thong around my neck.
Quickly I tear it off. "Yes, yes! Spin straw for ring," I say, thrusting it under her nose.
Grinning up at me toothlessly, she takes it, swallows it, sits down at the spinning wheel and begins to spin. Before long, it is morning, and she has spun all the straw into gold.
"Go now. Goodbye." She says, and vanishes.
Just then the King enters. As before, he sees the gold, makes sure that it's real, and then leads me to another room, a different, larger room full of . . . hay?
I stare at him, puzzled. "Where's the straw?" I manage to say.
He looks at me apologetically. "There was none. I'm afraid that you'll have to make do with hay.
If you don't, then your punishment will be beheading."
I decide not to comment, and instead concentrate on spinning. Before long, I have managed to actually spin the stuff into gold. "Huh," I think. "Perhaps father was right."
Within the hour, I have finished spinning the hay into gold.
As I am threading the last of the golden thread onto a bobbin, the little old man appears, along with his wife. When they see the room is empty, they become angry, and begin to yell at me in some unintelligible language.
I ignore them, and continue to work until the king walks in. "Have you finished?" He asks in a bored tone.
I nod, and look up at him, hoping to be freed from spinning. "Yes. Have you?" I ask, watching the little old man and woman out of the corner of my eye.
"Whatever do you mean, wench?" Asks the king, angry.
I suppress a laugh as I watch the man and woman begin to attach themselves to the king's clothing. "I mean, have you finished with me? Am I free to go now?"
"No," says the king in a bored voice. "I have more hay for you to spin before I let you leave. I want you to do more work for me, until my treasury is full."
I try hard not to snigger as the man and woman begin to pop the brass buttons off of his clothing and eat them, one by one. Soon there are none left, and the king's clothing is lying on a pile on the floor around him.
He shrieks and clutches at his underclothes. "No! Servants - help me!" He cries.
His staff masses around him, able to do nothing more than gape.
"Don't just stand there you idiots!" He yells. "Help me!"
In all the confusion I manage to slip away, out the palace doors, through the courtyard, across the moat, and into the forest, where I am now. Where I have found out what I wanted to know about everything. Like why the old man and woman could spin straw into gold. And why they ate metal.
It turns out that the old man and woman were a kind of hobgoblin that rejoices in helping people in need. They were servants of the fairy king, and were bound to his will, until the night of the Autumn Feast, when they escaped and made their way to the castle, where they helped me. When I gave them the necklace and the ring, they were bound instead to my will. When I wanted them to spin straw, they did it for me without question.
All of this I found in the lawyer's papers that were shipped to me today. I'm being sued for vandalizing the fairy king's property - his servants. The payment he expects? My first born child.
Right. If the fairy king is anything like his subject that delivered the papers today, then I have nothing to worry about. All I have to do is step on him, and squish him flat. That or guess his name. The old tales that my mother told me were right.
Beware of bogeys.
A/N - Any and all feedback is appreciated. I know that this installment was rather unfunny - after all, Rumpelstiltskin is a rather unfunny fairy tale, if you think about it, but the next one ought to be better. Watch out, Sleeping Beauty - here comes the Writer From Rivendell. :o)
Well . . . maybe.
A/N: By popular request, here is another installment of my Flayed Fairytales. Okay. So it wasn't popular request - only one review, but hey. If one person liked it, I know I haven't failed. Please note that this is not my best work - the miller's daughter seems to have a - rather sarcastic - mind of her own.
Sometimes I think my father is an idiot. Most of the time, I know he is. After all, how dumb can you be, to tell the king that your daughter can spin straw into gold? Even if it is true, you don't go around telling people things like that. It's just not good publicity. Especially when the king is a ruthless tyrant that will stop at nothing to get you to prove that your daughter can indeed do what she claims. Sigh . . . I love my father - I only wish he were more intelligent. Or knew how to keep his mouth shut. If he was not such a braggart, I would not be here now, locked in a room full of straw.
It's not the straw itself that's bad . . . it's the fact that it keeps making me sneeze. And it's prickly - very uncomfortable to lie upon. Oh well. Tomorrow morning, if I don't produce, I get tossed out of the kingdom. Hooray! Banishment! Just what we all want. On the bright side, if I am banished, I won't have to put up with my dunderhead of a father any longer.
Drat! I swear, this castle needs to get a good exterminator. I just heard another rat moving amongst the straw. At least, I hope it was a rat. What else could be making a noise like that? A sort of humming noise. A spinning wheel sort of noise. Can rats spin?
It must not be a rat. Rats can't spin - they don't have thumbs.
Suddenly all the bogey stories my mother used to tell me when I was a child are coming back to mind. Ulp. There aren't really such things as evil fairies, are there? No -of course not. Just like Father Christmas isn't real, so are fairies not. They're imaginary. I hope.
I have to see. I need to know what it is that is making the strange noise I'm hearing. I'm going to look.
It's a little man? What? What is he doing? Is he . . . yes. I don't believe it. He's picking up the straw and spinning it into gold. I don't believe this. It's got to be a trick of the light, or something. Maybe it's from hay fever.
No. He's quite real. I can assuredly say this because he just tried to take a bite out of my leg. Great. Now things have gone from bad to worse . . . I can honestly say that this experience is worse than the time I was supposed to clean the privy, and ended up falling in. In the morning, the king will throw open this door, and find my flayed body lying here, with bite marks here and there where the little man tried to eat me. Lovely. I just feel so cheerful right now . . . I'm about to be eaten by a freaky old man who isn't even three feet tall!
Wait . . . he's not biting me. He's chewing on my apron pocket - he must be able to smell the bread crumbs that I have in there, wrapped in an old rag. How, I don't know, but he probably wants them. Either that or he wants my necklace, and why would he want something like that?
I gave him the bread crumbs. He threw them on the floor and stamped on them. Apparently, that's not what he wants. I'd better try giving him the necklace, before he chews through my apron.
That's better. He's stopped gnawing at the cloth - now he's fingering the necklace and giving me a rather funny look.
"Spin straw?" The little old man says.
"What?" I ask him. "What do you want to do?"
"Spin straw for necklace."
Oh. So he wants to spin the straw in exchange for taking my necklace. I understand. Goodness, but his English skills are horrible! They're the worst thing about him - that or the smell. He smells like spices. Really old, really manky spices.
"Er, very well. That sounds like a fair trade." I manage to say, without having to smell him.
He nods excitedly, sticks my necklace in his mouth and swallows it, much to my dismay, then begins to spin again. Slowly but surely the pile of straw decreases until all that is left are a few wisps in the corners of the room. Sitting in front of me are ten spindles full of spun gold.
The little man nods and looks up at me. "Good? Good?" He asks.
I nod, too amazed to say anything. "Very good." I manage to squeak after a moment's pause.
He bows, and before I can say higgeldy-piggeldy, disappears, taking the bad smell with him. I sigh, relieved. "Good riddance," I can't help but think. "Now I can breathe again!"
At just that moment, the king enters the room. Seeing the spools of gold on the floor, he grabs me by the arm, and leads me to another room filled with straw. "Spin this straw into gold," he commands, "Or I'll have you burned at the stake as a witch."
I sigh and roll my eyes. "Great," I mutter. "I've gone from being banished to being eaten to being burned in the course of two days. Aren't I lucky?"
The king, of course, does not answer me.
As soon as I enter the room I begin to sneeze, and don't stop until almost twelve hours later. This I know because I can watch the sun out the tiny window in this tower room, and it was dawn when I entered here and started sneezing, and now it's pitch black outside. All the stars are out.
I'd better try my hand at spinning this stuff. After all, I don't want to die without at least trying. Who knows - maybe it doesn't take any talent. Maybe my dunderhead of a father was right, and I can spin the stuff into gold.
Or maybe I've just gotten so desperate I'm willing to try anything, so long as it means that I won't be burned at the stake.
I don't want to die!
All right. Just calm down. I know that I can do this. Just concentrate. Augh! The straw
keeps breaking off in my hand! It doesn't want to spin into thread. Spin, drat you - spin!
It won't spin. I am doomed. I might as well stuff my clothes with this straw - at least then I'll burn faster. Sigh.
"Spin straw for ring?" Asks a voice at my foot.
I look down. Standing next to me is a little old woman, who is pointing at the ring hanging on a thong around my neck.
Quickly I tear it off. "Yes, yes! Spin straw for ring," I say, thrusting it under her nose.
Grinning up at me toothlessly, she takes it, swallows it, sits down at the spinning wheel and begins to spin. Before long, it is morning, and she has spun all the straw into gold.
"Go now. Goodbye." She says, and vanishes.
Just then the King enters. As before, he sees the gold, makes sure that it's real, and then leads me to another room, a different, larger room full of . . . hay?
I stare at him, puzzled. "Where's the straw?" I manage to say.
He looks at me apologetically. "There was none. I'm afraid that you'll have to make do with hay.
If you don't, then your punishment will be beheading."
I decide not to comment, and instead concentrate on spinning. Before long, I have managed to actually spin the stuff into gold. "Huh," I think. "Perhaps father was right."
Within the hour, I have finished spinning the hay into gold.
As I am threading the last of the golden thread onto a bobbin, the little old man appears, along with his wife. When they see the room is empty, they become angry, and begin to yell at me in some unintelligible language.
I ignore them, and continue to work until the king walks in. "Have you finished?" He asks in a bored tone.
I nod, and look up at him, hoping to be freed from spinning. "Yes. Have you?" I ask, watching the little old man and woman out of the corner of my eye.
"Whatever do you mean, wench?" Asks the king, angry.
I suppress a laugh as I watch the man and woman begin to attach themselves to the king's clothing. "I mean, have you finished with me? Am I free to go now?"
"No," says the king in a bored voice. "I have more hay for you to spin before I let you leave. I want you to do more work for me, until my treasury is full."
I try hard not to snigger as the man and woman begin to pop the brass buttons off of his clothing and eat them, one by one. Soon there are none left, and the king's clothing is lying on a pile on the floor around him.
He shrieks and clutches at his underclothes. "No! Servants - help me!" He cries.
His staff masses around him, able to do nothing more than gape.
"Don't just stand there you idiots!" He yells. "Help me!"
In all the confusion I manage to slip away, out the palace doors, through the courtyard, across the moat, and into the forest, where I am now. Where I have found out what I wanted to know about everything. Like why the old man and woman could spin straw into gold. And why they ate metal.
It turns out that the old man and woman were a kind of hobgoblin that rejoices in helping people in need. They were servants of the fairy king, and were bound to his will, until the night of the Autumn Feast, when they escaped and made their way to the castle, where they helped me. When I gave them the necklace and the ring, they were bound instead to my will. When I wanted them to spin straw, they did it for me without question.
All of this I found in the lawyer's papers that were shipped to me today. I'm being sued for vandalizing the fairy king's property - his servants. The payment he expects? My first born child.
Right. If the fairy king is anything like his subject that delivered the papers today, then I have nothing to worry about. All I have to do is step on him, and squish him flat. That or guess his name. The old tales that my mother told me were right.
Beware of bogeys.
A/N - Any and all feedback is appreciated. I know that this installment was rather unfunny - after all, Rumpelstiltskin is a rather unfunny fairy tale, if you think about it, but the next one ought to be better. Watch out, Sleeping Beauty - here comes the Writer From Rivendell. :o)
