Maiden Miller

• Also known as

In the Zenescope Entertainment comics universe, the maiden Miller is the daughter of the local miller, who boasts at the local tavern that his daughter can spin straw into gold. He is overheard by a man working for the king, who tells his highness of the girl's supposed power. When summoned to the castle, the king asks that she stay overnight so he can test her. He locks her in a room full of straw with a spinning wheel and says if she doesn't spin the straw to gold by morning she and her father will be put to death. Weeping over her father's lies, a mysterious dwarf appears in the room and says he will transform the straw to gold for her bracelet. She gives it to him, and the next morning the king is happy with a room full of gold. He wants to make sure it is not a trick, so he bids the maiden stay a second night and perform her magic again. When the dwarf comes to the maiden this night, she cries that she has nothing to give him. He asks for her firstborn child and, desperate, she agrees. The king is pleased and marries the maiden, making her queen. They have a son together, and Rumpelstiltskin returns for his payment, but the queen doesn't want to give up her baby. In the Zenescope re-telling of this tale, Rumpelstiltskin gives her the chance to guess his name, and when she does, he acts defeated. When the boy is 13-years-old, a shadowy figure cloaked in black comes to the castle to tell the queen the story of a prince who was cursed and turned into a hideous dwarf. The curse could not be broken unless passed to another of royal blood, willingly given up by his parent. She must have uttered the name of the cursed to seal the magic. The shadowy figure throws off his cloak and it's Rumpelstiltskin, who turns the young prince into a dwarf, which automatically turns Rumpelstiltskin back into a prince.