Rumpelstiltskin Revisited
This article first appeared in the Minden Times on May 24, 2023.
Variations on the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin have been around for 4000 years and permeated almost every culture, so I shouldn’t be surprised how frequently it comes to my mind as a commentary on current events.
To review the plot briefly: an insecure peasant father brags that his daughter can spin straw into gold. The king locks her in a room full of straw and demands she spin it into gold by sunrise or be killed. Her despair is interrupted by an ugly little imp who promises to do the deed in exchange for her necklace. The king rewards her by putting her in a bigger room with a bigger pile of straw, says make it gold by sunrise or she’s dead. The imp helps out in exchange for her ring. On the third day, the king presents an even bigger pile of straw and sweetens (I guess) the deal: death if she isn’t successful, marriage to him if she is. When the imp appears, the girl has nothing to pay him with, so agrees (some versions say the price is announced after the deed is done) to give him her firstborn child. The king marries the girl (the tale doesn’t say the father dances at her wedding, but we can imagine his delight) and she eventually bears a child. The imp appears to claim his prize. The girl queen is distraught. The imp offers an out: if she can guess his name, she can keep her child. During the overnight reprieve, she wanders deep into the woods and sees the imp dancing around a fire, congratulating himself by name on the soon acquisition of a child. When the girl queen wins the deal, Rumpelstiltskin has a hissy fit that destroys or disappears him – there are many variations on his ending.
So why does the tale resonate so strongly with me? Let me count the ways.
First, there is the perfidy of men who have or seek power. Women aren’t immune, so we might conclude the poison is power rather than gender. Or more accurately, how power is used. The girl queen uses her powers of detection and careful listening to protect her child.
Second, there’s the nature of greed: nothing is ever enough. It’s a hunger that cannot be sated. I think a lot about how capitalism feeds on materialism, our modern word for greed.
Third, there’s the hierarchy of values. A necklace, a ring, and when the emptiness is not satisfied by things, it comes for people. It seeks human connection. Or perhaps the right to continuance through procreation, the ownership of a child who will ensure the gene line continues. Financial and political dynasties.
Fourth, procreation. Men can’t have babies so they bully women for what they can do that men cannot. It is a frequent thought when A Handmaid’s Tale is becoming a reality in a world near (and maybe within) us. (When all women want – a terrible pun – is a Womb of our Own.)
Fifth, the power of naming. Piya Chattopadhyay, on The Sunday Magazine show on CBC, April 30th, interviewed Norma Dunning, an Inuk professor at University of Alberta, about her recent book, Kinauvit? What’s Your Name? The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughter’s Search for her Grandmother. Part of colonizing the Inuit was replacing their names with numbers and requiring that babies be given English names rather than, as was the custom, that of a recently departed member of the family, which then, according to their beliefs, allowed the dead person to rest in peace. I had no knowledge of the disk system, but it is very much in keeping with the practice of dehumanizing people by reducing them to a number – we did it in concentration camps, residential schools, the military; we do it still in prisons. (And maybe SINs, health cards, credit cards, phone numbers. Maybe my paranoia is getting out of hand. Or maybe not. I’m scared of what our cell phones know about us, and I’m not fully informed.) All I know for sure is that being a name rather than a number is important to me.
The meaning of Rumpelstiltskin’s name is peeled into parts as a support to a structure – a stilt – that makes noise by rattling the posts or the planks. Thanks to those (I imagine mothers telling their children bedtime stories) who have retained him through the ages to rattle my planks.
