What's In A Name&;#063;

What's In A Name?

Once upon a time a poor Miller had a beautiful daughter but little
else, and because he was in his cups frequently at the local pub, and
wished to impress his drinking friends, bragged that his daughter could
spin straw into gold. The King, who loved his ale more than anything
but gold, overheard this tale, and ordered the Miller to bring his
daughter to the palace.

The Miller dragged his reluctant daughter to the palace and the King
dragged her to a room with a spinning wheel and a pile of straw. "Spin
this straw into gold by tomorrow morning or you'll die," he said. He
then locked the heavy door and left her.

This was most annoying. The girl uttered foul curses all on the men in
her life, who had used her for their own selfish purposes. She thought
and thought but could see no solution. Just then a raspy voice said, "I
can help you."

She turned and saw a small ugly man who smelled most foul. "I'll spin
the straw into gold, but what will you give me?"

"I have nothing but my body," the girl said, wrinkling her nose.

"Agreed," cried the little man, and worked through the night spinning,
after which he enjoyed the girl's favors while she held her nose.

The King was delighted, and dragged her to another room with more
straw. "More gold," he panted, "or tomorrow you die."

What a bore this man was! She waited and fretted and suddenly the ugly
little man appeared. "Need help again, I see. What will you give
me?"

"Did you enjoy my body? You shall have even more of it tonight if you
work quickly."

"Agreed!" The little man spun and spun, and finished at last, leapt
upon her and exhausted himself.

The King was ecstatic, but greedier than ever, and dragged her to a
room overflowing with straw. "My kingdom's treasury will pass any
auditor's test. Spin this straw into gold by morning and I'll make you
my wife."

What a dilemma! Marry this royal yokel and have to endure that foul
smelling gnome one more night! But she relented, thinking that being a
Queen might not be so bad. Her first proclamation would be to lop off
her braggart father's head.

Once again the little man appeared, limping across the room. He was
haggard looking and uglier then ever. "Don't you touch me, you vixen!,"
he cried, "you've drained every ounce of strength from me with your
wiles. You must promise to give me something else if I can manage to
spin all this straw into gold."

"What?," she asked, relieved.

"When you are Queen, you must give me your first born child."

"Agreed!"

So he spun all night and fell to the floor in a swoon. She had the
guards remove him and toss him into the moat to revive him. The King
noticed none of this, so beside himself with joy as he was. He married
the girl that very morning.

The new Queen forgot about the ugly little man, until a year later when
she gave birth and he appeared, saying, "You have ruined me for other
women, I have not been able to perform for this last year. Now you must
give me what you promised, the child."

"A promise is a promise," she declared. "Take her, if you dare."

"Her? Her?" He approached the cradle and drew back in horror. The babe
was small and gnarled and very ugly, a mirror image of the little
man.

"Her name is Rumplestiltskin."

The little man shrieked and stamped his foot. "No no, that's my name!
Mine! It's a magical name that gives me the power to spin straw into
gold!"

The Queen shook her head, smiling. "No longer is it yours. The King has
proclaimed that no one in his kingdom shall have the same name as his
daughter. From this day forward, you shall be known as Murray."

He raged and turned red as he whirled around the room, clenching his
fists. Before he disappeared in a puff of smoke, his voice, much
weakened, hissed out of the growing cloud. "I shall have my revenge!
Your rooms of gold are even now fading back into the straw from whence
they came!"

The King was displeased. He banished the Miller's daughter and the
child, and soon after, lost the palace because the treasury was
bankrupt. He wandered his former kingdom, begging alms from his former
subjects, for an occasional pint of ale. Not one of the good people
believed that he had once been King, but they laughed at his drunken
tale of rooms filled with gold.

As for the girl, she found an abandoned cottage in the deep woods at
the edge of the kingdom, and moved in. She was a patient young woman,
and her patience was rewarded, as year after year she watched her ugly
little daughter at the spinning wheel, spinning little nuggets of gold
from the bits of straw they were able to steal from the local
farmers.