Rumpelstilskin variation – 1 of the 500 "new" fairy tails

[mia]

As I’ve already written in another thread, I actually have the book with some (136 to be exact) of the 500 fairy tails collected by Franz Xaver von Schönwerther and found in the archives in 2009 by Erika Eichenseer. I’ve started to read them a few days ago and there are some really nice ones (My favourites so far are The beautiful slave and Two brothers. There’s a similar one of the latter by the Grimm Brothers, though.).

Something typical about fairy tails is – as you may know – that there are many variations, different from region to region. von Schönwerther was from Bavaria (and there from the northern part) and he collected the stories from that region. One of the stories is a variation of Rumpelstilskin! Since it is one of the “main” fairy tails in OUaT I thought I’d translate it for everyone not speaking German. 😉
The translation is not 100 % accurate (not word for word) and definitely not professional or at all correspondet to the rather old German used, but I tried to make it sound ok …

I’d really appreciate it, if you didn’t copy this translation and posted it on another site or wherever. If you want to use it, please ask me. 😉
If you speak German, buy the book, the stories are worth it. Only drawback is the horrid typography, it wasn’t published in any major house and by people who have no idea about making books … It’s truly ghastly if you know at least a bit about it … 🙁

Anyway, here some infos about the book and then enjoy reading a different account of the Rumpel motif:

Author: Franz Xaver Schönwerth
Title: Prinz Roßzwifl und andere Märchen (Prince Roßzwifl [it’s a dialect name for dung beetle] and other fairy tails)
Editor: Erika Eichenseer
Publisher: Dr. Peter Morsbach Verlag
2010
ISBN: 978-3-937527-32-1

Winterküberl (Winter = winter duh 😉 and Küberl is simply a last name from the region)

Once upon a time there lived a king who had a beautiful wife. The wife suddenly fell ill. She got worse and finally died, because she couldn’t remember the name that would have given her health.

During one time when the queen was still a child, she wandered through the thicket, got separated from her group, climed a mountain and fell into a whole. She then came to a cave where a mountain dwarf lived. He wanted to keep the child, but seeing that the little girl was scared of him and cried to see her mother, he guided her to the forest edge. From there she could see her home again. The mountain dwarf then told her: „Don’t forget my name! As long as you remember it ,you’ll be healthy and prosperous and won’t die. Woe betide you, should you forget! But also, you can’t tell anyone else, otherwise you’ll fall and die.“

Once, the queen fell and because of that, she forgot the name and died. The king announced that he would marry the woman who resembled his deceased wife the most. Many tried, but in vain.

In one little town, however, lived a tailor’s daughter and she told her father: „I’ll go to see the king. Maybe I’ll become his wife.“ The father didn’t want her to go, but to no avail. She went. While going through the forest she saw a dwarf jumping happily over a fire and speaking*:

„Burn, fire, burn,
that the queen won’t tell,
that I’m called Winterküberl.“

The tailor’s daughter made a mental note of that and when she came to the kind, she truly resembled the deceased queen. Thus the tailor’s daughter became the new queen.

Later on, she found out why the old queen had to die. So, the tailor’s daughter remembered what had happened in the forest, kept the name in mind and with that, luck, health and life. She ruled many years happily and contend, even after her husband had died.

* no singing here lol!

[LisaFromOH]

Thank you very much for taking the time translate and post this variation, Mia! It’s definitely an interesting twist on the version we’re familiar with. Does the little poem that Winterkuberl says (not sings :)) rhyme in German?

[mia]

Yeah, it rhymes. I’ve never been good at rhyming so I didn’t even try to find respective words in English and just translated the words and meaning. 😉

in German (some old words are used, written differently nowadays, and some dialect):
„Brinn, Feuerl, brinn,
dass die Frau Königin nicht derraten tut,
dass i Winterküberl heiß.“

in “normal” German it would’ve been:
„Brenn, Feuer, brenn,
dass die Frau Königin nicht verrät (or: verraten tut),
dass ich Winterküberl heiß.“

[Phee]

So even though the story itself is different, one key point remains the same: knowing his name is the key.

Thanks for translating it, Mia. 🙂

[mia]

Here’s the pdf version together with Maria Tatar’s (The New Yorker) translation of King Goldenlocks.
Tried to make it look a little nicer.

[Author]

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