Once there was a miller who was poor, but who had a beautiful daughter. Now it happened that he had an audience with the king, and in order to make himself appear as a person of importance he said to him, “I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold.” The king said to the miller, “That is an art which pleases me well; if your daughter is as clever as you say, bring her tomorrow to my palace, and I will try what she can do.”
When the girl was brought to him he took her into a room which was quite full of straw, gave her a spinning wheel and a reel, and said, “Now set to work, and if by tomorrow morning early you have not spun this straw into gold during the night, you must die.” Thereupon he himself locked up the room, and left her in it alone. So there sat the poor miller’s daughter, and for the life of her could not tell what to do; she had no idea how straw could be spun into gold, and she grew more and more miserable, until at last she began to weep.
All at once the door opened, and in came a little man, who said, “Good evening, Mistress Miller; why are you crying so?”
“Alas!” answered the girl, “I have to spin this straw into gold, and I do not know how to do it.”
“What will you give me,” said the manikin, “if I do it for you?”