R is for R**************

 Two essays written by Philip Harvey in response to the subject of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale in Spiritual Reading Group on Zoom presented by Cecily Clark, Wednesday 21^st of June, 2023.

 When the crucial meaning of a story is a character’s secret name, a name no-one must know, it seems a super-spoiler who uses the secret name for the story’s title. Even to use the character’s initial R in re-telling the story is to limit the possibilities of the secret name to one letter, rather than twenty-six. Be that as it may, R raises all sorts of questions and conjectures, whether we know his name or not. The original story is clear, he is a he. (Hehe!) R might be a figment of the girl’s imagination. He may equally well be the unexpected answer to her most desperate need. Unlike her, R can turn straw into gold. This is not elemental monetizing for the girl, whose very life depends on being able to turn straw into gold. Her interest is life itself, the desire to exist. So, as well as his secret name, R could be called Saviour, the Tempter. He is the Answer to her prayer, but he introduces his own Questions. R is a Q-figure, a mischief maker who seems to hold the key to what will happen next. Problem being, her father has actually claimed she can turn straw into gold. He is socially ambitious, able to believe what he says at the time regardless of whether it’s true. The king is very greedy. He is prepared to believe anything if it will extend his power. He will kill the girl if she doesn’t turn straw into gold. That is a threat and a promise. The king thinks this will make something happen, gold or death. Locked in her room she weeps. Then R appears and turns straw into gold for her, provided first she gives him her necklace, then her ring, and then a promise to hand across her first-born child. Such is the king’s happiness at seeing so much gold, he decides to marry the girl, poor though she be, and within a year they have a child. Quite forgetting her promise, she encounters one day soon this very same R, whose name may be Retribution or Repayment. She is even more bereft at the thought of losing her child than of not turning straw into gold. She, now the queen, had not imagined finding herself being in such a debt. This is more serious than any riches. But R provides her with an Answer. If the queen guesses his name, she keeps the child. Truly, it is extraordinary how many names there are in the world, just starting with the letter R. Each one possesses power well beyond its simple sound. For two days she comes up with an abundance of simple sounds, but they’re all fool’s gold. He laughs, for none of them are his name. On the third day a messenger tells the queen they had overheard while walking in the forest a song about a name, sung by someone fitting R’s description. It is the most extraordinary name and what were his parents thinking at the time. When R returns the last time, she teases him with names like Ruinator and Devil before spelling out this extraordinary name.  R recoils in anger at being found out. He finds himself being dragged into the earth, home of all that silent gold, and torn in two. (Hehe!)

 

Skin rumples that’s held tight by stilts, stilts of bones that may have known better days, mobile maybe agile but somehow awkward and disjointed. Rumpelstiltskin describes Rumpelstiltskin. Rumble of thunder, stilts of lightning, skeins of sky. Etymology aside, the name sparks at nerve ends, reverberates a hundred active verbs for danger. Though etymology is never simply an aside, as a name radiates its own extraordinary connotations. Room pelt style scan. Ruin pulse tilt skint. Rumpole Skilton. Always more than the sum of its parts. Germans know no such thing as suffix-skin, skin a diminutive as we say munchkin. Literally, as far as they’re concerned, rumpel rattle stilz post chen little being something someone somehow makes noises with in the house, earth tremor shakes, bumps in the night. The manikin of our undivided attention is a small rattle, for a German, woodenly ringing the changes of those he chances upon. His name is a child’s toy, he who would take a first-born child from its mother’s care. A mother who would name her child more mellifluously than Romp Bump Hell Stale Skimpy. What were his parents thinking? Throw the child a rattle! That will keep him quiet, not. Keep him entertained for hours. Unforgettable his name, actually, for a secret name no one’s supposed to know. Unforgettable once you know the name, by which time its power has vanished, now you are left with only the name, he having vanished into the earth. Again. Like a bedtime story, once again. Like you, the child will live to tell the tale. Tell the tale of the imp in all its simplicity. The imp with a limp, a chip on his shoulder, a chimp of chance, a simple solitary alchemist. And how come he ended up like that? Centuries later, still making trouble due to a lack of care? Reepelsteeltje if you are Dutch, Rumplchimprcampr if you are Bohemian, Rompeltisquillo if you happen to be Spanish, Europeans being as keen as anyone else to turn dry grass into solid gold, fearful as anyone else to lose their child. Fearful of being found out, fearful of things all falling apart. Ramble Steep Scorn. Well, tell the bedside story again and overcome the fear. Great François Rabelais (pseudonym, Alcofribas Nasier) invented the name, but who invented the story? In Urdu they call him Tees Mar Khan and in Hebrew, Ootz-li Gootz-li, the tiny terror who turns time’s turf to timeless treasure and teases the tormented with tragedy tee-hee. She will live and learn, she will be herself, she will trust to what’s best, she will trick him at his own game, his fall will be fast. His name will be a by-word, it will go up in lights, the movie of the book, the musical of the hit single, the author will be signing copies during the launch. It will be a sensible name on that flyleaf, with a joke anagram to help things along. Emit Skull Prints.  Kismet Runt Spill. Lust Prism Tinkle.