The following tales are
similar to the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale, AT-500: Name of the Helper. I have included the English
language tales of this type which have been gathered by title by D. L.
Ashliman in his A
Guide to Folktales in the English Language. Sometimes
I include tales of other classifications when I deem them relevant to
the theme. The tales come from many cultures and are similar to the Rumpelstiltskin
story in various ways. I have placed the tales in alphabetical order with
bibliographic information and links to texts of the stories if a text
is available on the internet.
Briggs, Katherine M., ed. A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970, 1971.
Deane, Tony, and Tony Shaw. The Folklore of Cornwall. The Folklore of the British Isles. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield, 1975.
Hunt, Robert. Popular Romances of the West of England; or, The Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall. London: John Camden Hotten, 1871.
A web version of this story does not exist due to copyright restrictions.
This tale is AT-500.
An English language version is available in:
Christiansen, Reidar, ed. Folktales of Norway. Pat Shaw Iversen, translator. Folktales of the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
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A web version of this tale does not exist due to copyright restrictions.
An English language version is available in:
Gonzenbach, Laura. Beautiful Angiola: The Great Treasury of Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales Collected by Laura Gonzenbach. Jack Zipes, translator and editor. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Amazon.com: Buy the book in hardcover.
This tale is AT-500. The story of Peerie Fool [Peerifool] comes from the Orkney Islands.
An English language version is available in:
Briggs, Katherine M., ed. A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970, 1971.
Examples of Printed Folk-Lore Concerning the Orkney and Shetland Islands. Collected by G. F. Black and edited by Northcote W. Thomas: County Folk-Lore, vol. 3, printed extracts, no. 5 (London: Published for the Folk-Lore Society by David Nutt, 1903)
A web version of this tale does not exist due to copyright restrictions.
This tale is AT-500. Marie-Jeanne Lheritier wrote this French tale.
An English language version is available in:
Zipes, Jack, ed. The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.
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Text available at Rumpelstiltskin for a Grimm's version translated by D. L. Ashliman.
The Lang version of the tale is annotated on this site at Rumpelstiltskin.
This tale is AT-500. This tale is from Germany.
An English language version is available in:
Clarkson, Atelia, and Cross, Gilbert, B., eds. World Folktales: A Scribner Resource Collection. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1980.
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Jack Zipes, translator. New York: Bantam, 1987.
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Lang, Andrew, ed. The Blue Fairy Book. New York: Dover, 1965. (Original published 1889.)
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Opie, Iona and Peter. The Classic Fairy Tales. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
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Zipes, Jack, ed. The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.
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Basile, Giovanni Batiste. Il Pentamerone, or The Tale of Tales. Sir Richard Burton, translator. London: Henry and Company, 1893.
A web version of this story does not exist due to copyright restrictions.
This tale is AT-500.
An English language version is available in:
Christiansen, Reidar, ed. Folktales of Norway. Pat Shaw Iversen, translator. Folktales of the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
Amazon.com: Buy the book in paperback.
While this tale is not AT-500, it is often compared to Rumpelstiltskin especially in analyses that focus on spinning in fairy tales.
An English language version is available in:
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Jack Zipes, translator. New York: Bantam, 1987.
Amazon.com: Buy the book in paperback.