Beauty is Only Skin Deep or What’s in a Name? By: La Tasha Marie Arnett

Once upon time, long ago and far away, a king, traveling, stopped on his way at the house of a rich miller. While there the miller boasted that his daughter could spin straw into gold. The king, a superstitious fellow, took him at his word and quickly impressed the girl into his service and carried her away to his castle. There he put her in a room filled with straw and a single spinning wheel and commanded her to start spinning. The girl stomped her foot and told the king that her father had not been literal in his words but the king had already locked the door. The girl, it was true, was very gifted in the art of spinning and with a bit of wool or cotton could spin a fine thread that sold very high in the city, this was what her father had meant but he was given to flowery words and so here she stood. She stomped and she screamed but no one came and as night fell she began to despair.

“Oh, I would give anything to be out of here!” She exclaimed unheeding.

“Anything?” a voice came from the shadows under the high window.

She turned startled and blanched with disgust as the ugliest man she had ever laid eyes on stepped into the moonlight.

Once upon a time, longer ago and farther away, there lived a pig farmer and his wife, a kind woman skilled in weaving. They were blessed with a child in the spring of their third year of marriage and had to flee their home immediately afterward. For the woman was cursed a witch at the birth of her first son. This was mostly because the midwife had fainted and the priest had crossed himself at the first sight of the infant. Someone made a remark on her perhaps having given birth to the son of a pig instead of a pig farmer and so the husband had stuck out and by the happenstance of a stove being in the way of the heckler’s fall the husband was condemned too and so they ran. The pig farmer released his pigs and drove them before and behind them to conceal their tracks as they disappeared into the forest. They came upon a small house fairly deep in the woods and an old woman invited them in out of the rain. The next day when the searchers came the old woman denied ever sighting them but recalled hearing screams near the river, swollen by the recent rains and snow thaw. The searchers went home and the pig farmer gathered his pigs and his wife and child and moved on to another country. He traded a fat sow for a loom and his wife and he soon setup a small but good trade in pigs and cloth and they lived there happily with many more children till their dying day.

As for their first son, the cause of all this commotion, they loved him with the unconditional love only a parent and occasionally others can give and receive. Yes he was ugly, hideous in fact, but they cared not for that, he was still their son. His mother made a clever hood to conceal his face to avoid the eyes of others and his baby sisters endlessly traced his misbalanced jaw line and were forever tugging playfully at his one huge ear. He grew up loved in his family but surrounded by great suspicion by all others. Why did he hide his face they asked? He simply said he was ugly and so people called him vain. Such are we that curse the unknown. The old woman that had sheltered them his first few nights alive had been a wise woman and so had whispered a gift into his newly formed body and brain, the gift of spinning. His mother had also been gifted at birth and though she made it not known to any, had she wished she could have wove the coarse yarn into a golden cloth but unwanted attention comes from abusing such skills and she never was so uncareful to let too high a quality cloth come from so low a quality thread as she could manage. The first son’s sisters were gifted in similar manners by the same woman who they affectionately referred to as Old Mother. The children grew and were married and settled close to home all but the oldest son for few would even speak to him let alone marry him. He began to despair of ever having a wife and children. Even his brother-in-laws shied away from his covered face and if not for the disapproval of their wives would not have let him see his nieces and nephews who loved him blindly because they grew up as their mothers had knowing him. Finally he begged to leave and perhaps find someone who would love him and give him children of his own. He left to the capital city and made well on his spinning trade there but still he could find none who would love him. As he sat at his work one day he hear the gossip that the king had found a miller’s daughter who was supposed to be able to spin straw into gold. It was said that if she could the king would marry her but if she could not she would die for her father’s boast. The gossips knew of the girl in question and claimed the father had only exaggerated her skill, but she was a mercenary person and one girl claimed she would have sold her soul to truly have such a gift especially at this dark hour. It occurred to the first son an old tale told by the wise woman about the exchange of babies, and he did so wish a child of his own. Children raised close to him were ignorant of his ugliness he knew.

He spun a strong rope and with nimble hands and feet dropped into the dungeon holding the captive spinner and here we shall truly start the story.

The girl shuddered to look upon his face but forced herself to focus, after all perhaps this was some demon sent to bargain but still she knew that she would never get this image out of her mind. The right side of his mouth was closed and almost puckered but the left stretched as if cut up to where an ear should have been. This gap showed his sharp teeth and the inside of his jaw. When he breathed a faint wet whistling sound was heard and his bright red tongue occasionally slid out to stop the flow of saliva from the open side. The left side seem to not have an ear but a closer looked revealed a small hole and such bumps surrounding as to be likened to the inside shell of an ear. The right ear was huge almost to make up for the other and was cupped like a bat’s; the top tip was level with the top of his head while the bottom lobe dangled near his puckered mouth. His nose seemed to be lacking bone and though there were two separate ridges for the nostrils the center one was sunken into his face. His eyes were the worst in the girl’s opinion. A protruding brow with thin eyebrows cast them in shadow and the left was a wide vivid blue making the contrast with the other all the worst for his right eye was normal in size and shape as the other but was completely black. No pupil or iris or eye white was discernable and because of this no matter which direction the other eye faced this one always seemed to be staring at you. He almost seemed to not have a forehead as a shaggy hank of bright brown hair peppered as if sprinkled with soot covered it and hung down behind him tied with a thick red tie.

“Yes anything.” She repeated after she had regained her voice. As much she wanted to she found herself unable to look away from his horrible vestige, partly for fear of insulting him and partly in still horror.

“The only way you can get out of here is to spin the straw into gold which you can not do but I can. What will you give me to save your life and make you a queen?”

“A queen?”

“The king has said he will marry you if you can do as your father claimed but he shall have you and your family executed if he has been lied to.”

She shuddered for the first time of a fear outside this room. “What do you want?”

“Your first child.”

“Done.”

He grimaced a smile and she jumped to glimpse if only for a moment the white bone of his cheek. “You agree very quickly.”

“What use do I have for a child?”

“Very well then.” He suddenly did not feel so bad for taking the child of such a selfish woman, “I have the contact right here.” He pulled a thick rolled parchment from his side pouch and presented her with a knife and a quill. “You will sign such in blood giving me full rights to the child. When I come to lay claim it will be as if you have never touch the babe and it will be mine as if I had bore it not you.”

She trembled in fear holding the knife lightly with her right hand to cut open her left for ink to write with but the midnight call of the guards changing outside startled her into action. She cleanly sliced her palm and wrote her name at the bottom. She saw a similar wound on his hand and realized the entire thing had been written in his own blood. The fact that she had touched parchment that contained the creature’s blood disturbed her more than having signed her first child away did.

“Well then, that’s that. Now hurry Creature dawn is but hours away!” She said looking fearfully to the open window as if she could see dawn’s light already.

He blew gently to dry the blood on the parchment before rolling it up and taking his seat at the wheel. “Hand me the straw and I shall spin it.” He began to spin the wheel and with increasing speed she handed him handfuls of straw and he spun out a thick cord of gold. Soon where there had been a great pile of yellow straw there was now a great pile of yellow gold. It was not yet dawn but the sky was growing considerably lighter.

“If I were you I would inform the king that your powers can not be tested like this again. Tell him that you only managed this in fear of your life but that using so much of your gift has made you very tired. Pretend to be faint and very weak for the next several days. Do you understand?” He knew that he would not be able to do this over and over again and though without practice one could not see it, his vestige showed his exhaustion.

She nodded, “I understand.” She was exhausted herself and laid down next to the fire that merrily burned having been fed with more than half the straw to speed up the process. She reasoned that finding straw spun into gold cord should be enough surprise that the king wouldn’t measure it. In fact the king did weigh the straw before hand and the gold afterwards but though there seemed to be less of it no one but the royal treasurer thought much of this for straw made gold was such a cheap exchange he did not quarrel it.

The gifted spinner went back out the window the way he came and back to the Textile Guild. He didn’t have to try very hard to feint an illness for the next week or so as he regained his strength after such a desperate display of his gift. When he finally rose from his bed the other spinners told him that he had missed the royal wedding and he smiled beneath his mask.

Time passed, specific number of months as you can imagine and then came the royal proclamation.

The holiday was called and the citizens were allowed into the court yard to view the infant on a raised dais. The king beamed with pride and his wife sat smiling in her chair, mostly grateful to be free of the extra weight and thankful for wet nurses. Suddenly there was a breach in the crowd as people stumbled over one another to get away from what was now walking up to the dais, a rolled parchment in it’s hand. The king drew back in horror and even the guards were pale faced and stiff with fear.

“Our agreement,” He held up the scroll, “The child is mine.”

“What!” The king, bravery bolstered by fatherhood lunged to his feet to glare angrily at the monster before him.

“Your wife made a deal with me. Written and signed in blood, the child is mine.”

“Is this true?” The king turned on his frozen wife then back to the monster before him. “Let me see that!” The king snatched the offered scroll and tore it open. He trembled as he read the blood wrote words. The king was superstitious, a wise thing to be in such a magical kingdom and he was no fool. He knew that as queen his wife would have to uphold the deal. Were she not queen it would merely have meant her life, as queen the breaking of the deal would reflect on the country.

His glance to his wife promised many dire things but first, “Why? Why would you have made such a deal?”

She turned to him and returned his glare coldly, “You would have killed me and father had you not found gold in that chamber the next day. What does some unimagined, unwanted child weigh against that?”

The king’s face grew slack with shock at this woman’s callousness, a feeling mirrored by most of the audience. A glance at the creature revealed the infant prince already in his arms. The creature was cooing at the babe as it stretched a chubby arm up to lay a tiny pale hand on the creature’s jaw. Obviously his son was unafraid of the creature’s hideousness. If a babe had not to be afraid of then what did a king?

“Can you not be reasoned with Creature? Anything, ask for anything only do not take my son away.” The king pleaded, not a common sight, with the monster before him.

“I will take your child away if only to spare it the continued presence of that thing that originally him. Grateful I am that I included a clause in the contract that washes him of her completely.” He looked up and grimaced his smile, “If only you could do the same, aye?”

The king did not even spare his wife a glance. The whole of his attention was focused on the tiny bundle held in the creature’s arms. “Please do not take my son Creature. Please I beg of you.”

The new father grimaced frowned, “A king should not beg. I am not without kindness. I will return in three days. Those three days are what you have to come up with my true name. If you can guess it I will leave the babe and never return. Is this satisfactory?”

The king nodded and added, “The babe stays with me till then.”

He hesitated but finally nodded. He would need to make preparations for the child’s care and somehow though he did not trust the queen he did not think the king would let the young prince out of his sight those three days. “So be it.” He regretfully placed the royal blue bundle into the king’s inexperienced arms. He chuckled and adjusted the royal personage’s grip on his son advising in a low voice to support the head and other such tidbits about holding babies that came from long experience as an older brother and uncle. The babe again waved his hands towards the misshapen face and the owner of such face kissed his fingertips before laying them gently on the babe’s forehead. “I will be back for you my son.” He whispered and a happy gurgle arose from the blankets. He turned and stepped away and off the dais.

Again the crowd parted and he walked through unmolested. He disappeared in the shadows of an alley and once he was sure he could not be seen ran to the other end and came out different. While anyone might be looking for a monster in a vivid blue coat few would be looking for a scarlet hood in a matching jacket. He made his way back to the Textile Guild and told the masters there of a malady that had befallen one of his sisters and that he must return home in a few days time. He surpressed the urge to dance a merry jig and sing aloud. Those next three days he brought a milk giving goat along with a few other things and rented a cart. He left these at an inn on the outskirts of the city and returned to the palace on the third day employing his two sided coat again with his hood tucked in an inner pocket.

His disguise was clever but only protected him from common citizens for the king did not order any guards after him in fact he had to stifle a few orders to give chase. The king knew better that to hassle one holding such an important deal over his head and instead began to do four things over the next three days. He gave the parchment to his lawyers in a vain hope of a loophole, he began the process of divorce of his wife and because of the tangles in the wedding contract as laid down by her and her father this was a process that would likely take months if he did not want to lose half his kingdom. His son once shuffled off to nurseries like many children of the rich or royal now spend every moment with his father. The king even learned how to change diapers to keep his son in his arms though of course he did not wash them himself. The babe only left his arms to be feed by the wet nurse. In between and during these other three activities the king gathered and spent every waking moment poring over tomes and tomes full of names. He had scribes following him around writing every name he came to and arranging them in order of commonness.

Finally the third day arrived and the creature with the mangled face stepped lively through the palace doors and marched right up to the dais. He noticed the queen’s chair was empty which pleased him immensely and that the babe lay sleeping in a crib between the thrones which pleased him more. He noted the huge parchment roll lying in the king’s lap, doubtlessly full of names, and felt not a twitch of fear for he knew that the chances of his name, his true name, being on that parchment were so incredibly slim that the chances of the sun rising in the West were more likely. Only he knew his true name and he had never been so foolish as to speak it aloud, but it was a magic name one that even the word that could be spoken for it did not truly convey its meaning. Old Mother had carefully taught him and sisters how to find their true names when they were little children and none of them had ever spoken them for they knew the consquences of such.

The king smiled grimly at the Half Grinner, as he had been dubbed about the palace, and with a flourish unrolled the scroll. The long parchment fell from his lap and tumbled down the stairs. It rolled some twenty feet out from the king’s feet and as the sun began to rise over the treetops, for the Half-Grinner had come early, the king began.

“Johnathan, Matthew, William, Paul, Ronald, Luke, Peter,…..” After the first hour or so the Half-Grinner said he would let it be known if they got to his name and calmly spend the rest of the morning alternatively playing with the babe and listening to the king’s voice slowly grow hoarse. “Michael, Alonzo, Joshua, Adam, Seth, Noah,…”

They had a brief breakfast which the Half-Grinner was invited to join, hospitality being maintained between the two men, and at which the king drunk hot tea to sooth his throat and so he started again. “Joseph, Craig, Steven, Robert, Aaron,…”

The young prince awoke and his soon to be permanent father picked him up to gently rock him. The wet nurse was pushed into the hall and marched up to the Half-Grinner. He grimaced smiled at her and she nearly ran, but he only handed her the child and while half listening to the king drone names asked her professional opinion on goat’s milk.

“Goat’s milk? What about it?” Her surprise overrode her fear for a moment.

“For the babe I mean. My sister has recently had another child and has told me that she has no problem feeding another but the road there worries. It is said that goat’s milk is best if no wet nurse or mother can be found. What is your opinion?” He seemed to actually want to know and peered at her curiously with his mismatched eyes.

“Then you are not going to eat the babe?” The king asked having been listening and paused in his reading.

The horror was apparent even in so horrible a face as the Half-Grinner stood and stumbled some steps away from them. White of his blue eye was starkly apparent and his black eye continued to confirm the lack of such but even the closed side of his face gaped as he stuttered out, “Eat? Eat! Eat that precious little baby... Why the thought had never crossed my mind. The farthest thing from it. Why would you…?" His voice grew angry, "I realize that I may look like a monster but to think that I would…” He turned and grasp at his breast, sinking in to one knee and he breathed heavily in an easily recognizable pattern of one trying not to sob. The odd whistling noise of his mouth was the only sound. Finally he caught his breath and continued, “I am the oldest of eight siblings and the uncle to more nieces and nephews than you could easily count. I know that though adults may look upon me with fear babes do not for they have not yet discerned what beauty and ugliness is. Those children raised with me no more look at me with fear than my own dear mother does and yet I wanted a child of my own. Having despaired of ever finding one to bear my child I contrive this bargain to gain a child of my own. The miller’s daughter was perfect. Mercenary and threatened and needed a skill only I could provide. I counted on the latter for her to agree and the former to avoid problems fulfilling it. Then I would have a child of my own to raise…”

He stood from where he knelt and approached the wet nurse who was now doubly wet with tears. “Is the babe finished?” She nodded and fled as soon as he had taken the babe from her arms. “My name is not on that scroll. Only I know my true name and it has never been spoken aloud, even if it had the word would still not be my true name. Good bye.” He turned and began to march to the door.

“Wait!” The king shouted and was not heeded. He got up from his throne and chased after the Half-Grinner. Catching the man by the shoulder he ignored the shrug off. “Why did you let me wait three days if you knew I could not guess your true name?”

The man looked down at his son, “Because children are too precious to snatch away. I wanted you to have time to say good bye. From what I’ve heard you’ve been doing very well at that…” He looked up into the king’s eyes and for just a split second of time which the king would later disbelieve and if questioned would have denied, but for just that second he saw beauty under that hideous face.

“I’ll be in touch.” The man said and began to walk forward only to again have to progress inhibited.

“What?”

“I took a child from her, not the father, not you. I need to go but I’ll keep in touch and I’ll bring him to see you soon.”

“You could stay here in the palace.”

“No.” he smiled and this time the king saw it as such, “My mother will want to see her new grandchild and he must be blessed by the Old Mother, but we will be in touch. Perhaps we will visit when she is gone, aye?” He walked on unmolested careful to put on his mask and switch his jacket around. He wrapped the infant in another blanket to hide the royal cloths and continued to the inn holding his cart. He drove the day’s journey out to his home village and studiously ignored the following horsemen.

A distance guard saw the man and the prince welcomed joyfully into a large family that spilled out of a small community to greet the man known as Half-Grinner and his child. Under orders from the king this little village suddenly became the most heavily protected district in the entire country and some months later a note arrived wedged in the spokes of the Half-Grinner’s spinning wheel. It would have been simple.

The broodmare and her sire are gone. I’m coming to visit.

His Royal Majesty

King Adley III

If not for the king’s personal seal at the bottom.

His family fretted for several seconds but regained composure at their son and brother’s calmness. He continued feeding a mashed food to his young son and quietly told them that everything would be fine. They accepted this and noted with only a little worry and some amusement that his only preparation was to pull out the trundle bed in his house and to give the young son a thorough bath.

The king arrived some hours later on his own horse accompanied by five trusted soldiers, the same ones that had followed the prince and his foster father several months ago. The king dismounted and one father placed the child in the other’s arms.

“Oh how are my son? You are so big. I have missed you so much.” The king looked down with great love in his eyes at the infant. For his part the prince smiled an empty mouthed grin and waved his arms and legs around to both of his fathers' delight.

“Would you like to come in?”

“Oh yes.” The king turned to his men, “Dismissed you have leave for the next week.” They saluted and turned their horses to leave but did not head into the village. The king was puzzled.

“I believe they have made a small temporary fort some distance away. Mother and my sisters send them food and clothes some times.” He shrugged and turned to walk inside but was confronted by one of his nephews.

“Can I take care of the king’s horse, uncle?” The boy shyly asked looking at the ground where he was scuffing his foot in the dirt.

“Ask the king, it’s his horse.”

The nephew stared up at him with some fear and blushed when he saw his uncle laughing at him.

“You are not the least bit worried at holding your cousin, the prince, under the goat to nurse but yet you quake at the idea of asking his father, the king, to take care of his horse.”

Blushing at his uncle’s playful chuckles the young boy approached the king who smiled at him, this made him feel somewhat better. “Sir…uh I mean Your Majesty..can I take care of your horse for you Sir..I mean Sire..I mean..”

“Yes, but mind his teeth. He’s not ill tempered but I’ve never impressed upon him the difference between humans and horses and our opinions on biting.”

“Oh Sir..I mean Sire. My father’s the farrier and I hold his horses all the time. Umm..what’s his name Sire.”

“Stain.”

“Stain?”

“Yes I raised his mother and awaited him as a foal. When he was born I looked at him and asked what that odd stain was on his hindquarter and the name stuck. He has a official royal name written down somewhere that alludes to his pedigree but I never bothered to remember it.”

“Yes Sire.” The boy took the reins from the king and together the boy and the horse trotted off to the stables. Later the boy worried about not having bowed to the king but then shrugged. His uncle was not showing him any airs and the king seemed a nice enough fellow surely he would forgive him. Actually it was the king's superstition that made him not care. In a magical kingdom it did the king no good to act superior for someone out there was sure to take offense.

The king meanwhile had followed the man into his small home. It was not much. A bed, a cradle, a fireplace with a teapot, some chairs and some small tables covered with various spools of thread. In the corner dominating the room was a massive spinning wheel surrounded by various piles of raw material. He raised his eyebrows, “Planning to spin more straw into gold.” He walked in and took a seat in the rocking chair next to the cradle.

“No. It’s an abuse of my gift. I had only done it intentionally once before a year ago and that was not straw. Last year I exhausted myself, I told her to fake sickness in hopes that you would not ask for more. I was in bed two weeks unable to move because of that.” He set the tea he had made on the table and leaned over to tickle the baby’s chin, “It was worth it.”

“So it is a gift? I had wondered. Honestly that was one of the reasons we…thought as we did. We thought someone with that kind of power… To turn straw into gold must be some sort of…” Here he shrugged. He remembered the pain the man had shown in his throne room months ago and he did not want to see it again.

“You were willing to accept it in her but not in me?” The man asked. He leaned back and eyed the king.

“Spinning is a woman’s craft. To tell you the truth the fact that wool goes in and comes out yarn is just as hard to believe but I own a wool cloak I know it happens. Straw into gold was only slightly stranger but a man showing up demanding a baby with a contact written in blood for exchange in spinning straw into gold and well...”

“I see your point and well my face doesn’t help either. Is that the rest of it?”

“You are not that bad.”

“They call you Adley the Brave in some parts and yet you froze in terror at the sight of me.”

“Well you are not what one usually expects to see!”

The baby started crying. He did not like the arguing. His royal father cooed and rocked him gently while his foster father leaned over to gently tickle him. The baby soon quieted and seeing a studied attempt to grab his toes his foster father stood and moved the cradle into the sun’s light from the window and his royal father unwrapped him fully and laid him down. Together they watched as he waved his arms and legs happily.

The king sat down again while his fellow father moved to sit at his spinning wheel. Soon the quiet hiss of its turning filled the room and the king spoke again. “You are not so bad that one does not get used to you quickly. You have a beautiful eye, nice chin, your hair is not so bad and the rest of you is fine, handsome in fact.” The king continued looking at his son and politely avoided looking in the corner where the hiss of the wheel had slowed briefly before starting up again.

“Thank you.” There was not much else to say. The king had not said anything that his own mother had not told him when he worried at his appearance.

“What is your name?” This time the hiss of the wheel did stop and the king turned to look at him. “I don’t mean your true name but I tire of referring to you as him or that guy or my son’s father in my head. Surely you have a call name.” The king’s brow was furrowed, this was something that had bothered him. Over the weeks he had wondered through the list of names in his spare time and assigned the man this name or that in his head but still when he sent the note ahead of himself he still had not a name to address it to and it had troubled him.

“Lezane, my mother named me Lezane.” The hiss of the wheel started once more.

“Lezane,” The king chuckled, “You know I do not think that name was on my list.”

“It is foreign. A trader came to the town we lived at while my mother was pregnant. She asked for some exotic name and he told her that Lezane meant beloved and so she named me.” The king noted the softening eyes and the slight lift of the lips that told of a smile.

“It is a good name. My name is Adley as I’m sure you know. Not that you ever bothered with it but the Your Majesty and Sire thing gets on my nerves. Seems only right to call each other by our names, we are going to be together a lifetime after all.” Adley smiled fondly at the small baby who appeared to be trying to roll over.

“What is his name?”

“Whose?”

“The baby’s I’m sure he has some royal name.”

“Adley the fourth.”

“That’s inventive.”

Adley the third shrugged, “What do you call him?”

“Leron, it’s Arabic, it means the song is mine.”

“Adley is Hebrew and means just.”

“They are both nice names but I think we should stick with mine to avoid confusion.”

“Good point, oh I almost forgot.” He reached into his pocket and pull out a small rattle. “This was my favorite I am told.” He handed it to his son who enthusiastically began beating it against the posts of the pram delighted with the rattling noise.

Lezane chuckled and began to spin once again. A rhyme came to mind and he was careful to sing it only within his head as he watched the king smile and play with the baby.

The baby rattles in its pram

The king has become my friend

I smile and sit and spin

My name is Rumplestiltskin

And they lived happily ever after. The End.

Side note: the name Rumplestiltskin vaguely comes from a mischeivous spirit who shakes fence posts making a rattling noise.