The Fairy tale of Rumplestiltskin is one of my favorites and is quite the little story. As with many fairy tales that we know this is based out of Germany and is best known as one of the Grimm's brother's stories.
It seems like the majority of the fairy tales that we come across in literature all start off with an arrogant father that likes to brag or does not consider thinking before he acts. We saw this in Sleeping Beauty and we see this again in Rumplestiltskin. As the story starts off the Miller goes to the castle on some matters. He wants to be perceived as a big man so he tells the King that his daughter can spin straw into gold. Of course this is a big lie and the King being a typical King decided he wanted to take a look at this gold spinning girl and get his share of it. This is where our maiden (who by the way is not given a name in the story) finds herself in a bit of a predicament. She is told she has to spin all this straw into gold or else she will be killed. At this point she gets a little helper, a dwarf who offers to do it for her necklace. The next night it is the same story and he helps her for the cost of a ring she is wearing. The third night the maiden is told that if she spins all the straw into gold she will become queen. This time when the dwarf comes she has nothing else to offer so he suggests her first-born child and she accepts. After about a year of marriage she has forgotten about what the dwarf says and she has a child. To make a long story short she then has to discover this dwarfs name in three short days or he will take her child.
Through this story we learn that not all help comes with out a price. Each time Rumplestiltskin's requests got bigger. His help was not out of the kindness of his little heart. The maiden however forgot her promise. Through this it is good to learn to never forget a promise. It will always come back to haunt you when you least expect. The big lesson that we can learn from this is the age old saying. Pride comes before a fall. Rumplestiltskin had it. He would have won the bet if he had not been so proud. You see when the Maiden turned Queen was trying to figure out what his name was she sent a messenger to go out searching for some names. This messenger came across a little house with a little man dancing and bragging to himself that know one knew his name was Rumplestiltskin. Apparently Rumplestiltskin was too proud for his little britches.
