"Rumpelstiltskin" is a German fairy tale. It was collected by the Brothers Grimm in the 1812 edition of Children's and Household Tales. The story is about an imp who spins straw into gold in exchange for a woman's firstborn child.
Illustration from Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book (1889)
Illustration by Anne Anderson from Grimm's Fairy Tales (London and Glasgow 1922)
Stamp series on Rumpelstilzchen from the Deutsche Post of the GDR, 1976
Illustration by Walter Crane from Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm (1886)
A fairy tale is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends and explicit moral tales, including beast fables. Prevalent elements include dragons, dwarfs, elves, fairies, giants, gnomes, goblins, griffins, merfolk, monsters, talking animals, trolls, unicorns, witches, wizards, magic, and enchantments.
The European fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in a painting by Carl Larsson in 1881.
Hop-o'-My-Thumb and the ogre in an 1865 illustration
A picture by Gustave Doré of Mother Goose reading written (literary) fairy tales
Ivan Bilibin (1876-1942)'s illustration of the Russian fairy tale about Vasilisa the Beautiful
