Rumpelstilzchen (2009)

When the miller’s daughter Lisa and Prince Moritz happen to meet in the forest, it is love at first sight. They promise to see each other again as soon as possible, but things turn out differently. When Lisa’s father, the miller Gisbert, boasts at the castle of the gold-hungry King Gustav that his daughter can spin straw into gold, the king forces him to send Lisa to the palace. There, she is locked in a chamber full of straw and ordered to spin it into gold. Lisa must accomplish the impossible, because she is threatened with death if she fails. The young woman is utterly desperate when, suddenly, as if by magic, “a nasty little man” appears. He promises to help Lisa, but demands something in return. In exchange for Lisa’s necklace, a keepsake from her mother, the little man really does spin the straw into gold. When the king wants more gold, Lisa gives the little man her mother’s ring as payment for his further help, as he demands. The king is delighted and, in his greed for gold, demands that Lisa turn even more straw into gold. The little man appears again beside the imprisoned Lisa and this time demands her firstborn child in return. In utter desperation, Lisa accepts the bargain, and the little man once again spins the straw into gold. The king falls ill from all the gold and abdicates. Prince Moritz becomes the new king and marries the miller’s daughter. After Lisa, now queen, gives birth to a child, the little man appears again and demands that she honor their agreement. But she is given a chance: if she guesses the little man’s name, she may keep her child. The young queen questions her people so she will have a wide selection of names to choose from, supposedly to find a suitable name for her own child. But the little man accepts none of the names. The king notices that a flower the little man wore on his cap grows only in a particular spot in the forest. This allows the royal couple to watch the little man dancing and singing in a cave in the forest: “Oh, how good that nobody knows that Rumpelstiltskin is my name.” At their next meeting, they tell the little man his name, and Rumpelstiltskin sinks into the ground in anger. Queen Lisa gets her beloved jewelry back.