Most readers remember that Rumplestiltskin asked for a poor woman’s child in return for giving her a pile of gold. They may also remember that, in the end, the poor woman kept the gold, the child and married the king. Now, in her amazing good fortune, she fulfilled two of the most conventional themes of Euro-Asian folklore, the rags to riches theme and the return or creation of a child theme.
Yet “Rumplestiltskin” is anything but a conventional work of folklore.
Even on the most superficial level, “Rumplestiltskin” is odd. To begin with, the story is named after the main character–a man who happens to be both the apparent antagonist and a dwarf. Since when are dwarfs not benevolent characters in folklore?
Moreover, upon close examination, I understand that Rumplestiltskin–the poor dwarf who was barred from the blessing of having a family– is precisely the one character with whom we should empathize, while all the others, the newborn excepted, are greedy, selfish and cruel. Sure, Rumpelstiltskin asked for the woman’s first child as a payment, but why not when she had already given him her “ring”?
Is this not a rare folktale that asks us to reconsider the social status of the dwarf and of all visible minorities who struggle to attain the simple pleasures of marriage and family?
Tear the text in two just as Rumplestiltskin, in his gruesome, final act, mysteriously tore himself in two.
