Rumpelstiltskin

By: The Brothers Grimm

Narrated by: Stephen Mangan

A beautiful miller's daughter is locked away by the King and told she will never see her family again unless she spins straw into gold. Then an ancient dwarf promises to help - but there is a price to pay....

©2012 AudioGO Ltd (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Great for Children

Love it, the voices were amusing to listen to. We enjoyed it. We kept acting out the characters as they spoke.

Great Classic

This book was great for my kids to hear a classic. It was great bc it’s nice to have fast stories for quick errands.

Cute

A cute story and a valuable lesson to be learned as well. Beware of who you bargain with.

Interesting fairy tale story

Rumpelstiltskin, a German fairy tale, collected by The Brothers Grimm, is an interesting story. A miller's daughter is locked up in a room filled with straw and asked to spin it all into gold by a greedy king. An ancient magical dwarf appears the first night and helps her in exchange for her necklace. The story repeats the next night with twice the straw to be spun into gold and is done so by the magical dwarf again in exchange for her ring.

The greedy king is so greedy that he locks up the miller's daughter for the third night to spin three times the straw of the previous night into gold and promises to make her queen if she does so. The ancient magical dwarf appears once more and helps her in exchange for promise of giving her first born to him. The miller's daughter reluctanly promises. Later, she does indeed become the queen and has her first child. The dwarf appears once again demanding her to keep up her promise. Unable to part with the baby, the queen pleads with the dwarf and the dwarf gives her three days to guess his name. If the queen could guess his name, he will let her keep the baby. And, of course, the queen is able to tell him his name eventually, Rumpelstiltskin, on the third day and the dwarf is outraged. He stamps his right foot so hard into the ground that the ground breaks into a chasm and he is taken in, never to be seen again. The queen gets to keep her baby, a happy ending.

However, few things don't patch up well. Initially, it was shown that the king was greedy and evil and the ancient dwarf was actually a helpful dwarf helping the miller's daughter, though in exchange for something. The miller's daughter marries the greedy king. As the tale proceeds, there is nothing mentioned about the greedy king and the ancient dwarf seems sort of evil. As far as I can think of, I have never seen one greedy person turn any different to original greedy behavior in any other story. And, the dwarf must have helped other people in need though for exchange and that cannot make him so evil either. Something doesn't fit perfect in the story. It's an old fairy tale so wonder if there is more to it and actually got lost in time. Anyway, it a good listen and I really enjoyed the performance by Stephen Mangan.

Nostalgic:

This is perfect for Bed time stories while driving🫣. Jk only when driving on the highway.