‘Perhaps your name is Cowribs, Spindleshanks, or Spiderlegs?’
But he answered every time, ‘No; that’s not my name.’
On the third day the messenger came back and said: ‘I haven’t been able to find any new names, but as I came round the corner of a wood on a lofty mountain, where the Fox says good-night to the Hare, I saw a little house, and in front of the house a fire was burning; and around the fire an indescribably ridiculous little man was leaping, hopping on one leg, and singing:
The next day I will bring the Queen’s child here.
Ah! lucky ‘tis that not a soul doth know
That Rumpelstiltskin is my name, ho! ho!”
Then you can imagine how delighted the Queen was when she heard the name, and when presently afterwards the little Man came in and asked, ‘Now, your Majesty, what is my name?’ at first she asked:
‘Is your name Tom?’
‘No.’
‘Is it Dick ?’
‘No.’
‘Is it, by chance, Rumpelstiltskin?’
‘The devil told you that! The devil told you that!’ shrieked the little Man; and in his rage stamped his right foot into the ground so deep that he sank up to his waist.
Then, in his passion, he seized his left leg with both hands, and tore himself asunder in the middle.
