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The Worlds of Gilbert and Sullivan

This famous story starts:

Well, as you can imagine, this led to a chain of events which became quite hairy. Briefly the story went like this . . .

She was taken to a room high in the castle and given a pile of straw and a spinning-wheel and told to spin it into straw, on pain of her life. Poor girl, she did her best to tell him the truth, but . . . Whilst she was crying in her despair a strange little man appeared and offered to spin the gold for her - at a price. She offered him her necklace, and he completed the task.

The shocked (and delighted) king took the gold and, being somewhat greedy, gave her another, larger, pile to do next night. Once again the little man came to her rescue - this time for her ring. Once again the magic worked and she presented the king with another pile of treasure.

Still not satisfied, the king put her into a larger room full of straw, and told her if she could spin this into gold she would become his queen. Once more the little man appeared, but this time she had nothing left to give. He made her promise to give him her first child when she married the king. What could she do but accept? So again he performed the miracle, and the gold was delivered to the king.

They were duly married, and a little child was born to the queen. Then the little man appeared demanding his dues. The horrified queen appealed to him so tearfully that he said if after three days she could guess his name she could keep the child.

Messengers were despatched throughout the kingdom to try and find this information. The first day he appeared and she guessed at several names, but to no avail. The second day, several different guesses produced the same result, and away he went chuckling. 

In desperation, the queen sent messengers out once more, and this time one returned with the news that deep in a wood he had come across a strange little man who sang a funny little song:

'Merrily the feast I'll make,
To-day I'll brew, tomorrow bake;
Merrily I'll dance and sing,
For next will a stranger bring;
Little does my lady dream
Rumple-Stilts-Kin is my name!'

You've guessed it. The queen then told him his name successfully, which made the little man very mad. And the story ends:

'Then he made the best of his way off, while every body laughed at him for having had all his trouble for nothing.'

Now let's visit the  The Emerald Isle

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