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Once upon a time there was a maiden whose corset didn’t lace all the way to the top, if you know what I mean. She came by her dimwittedness naturally; her father wasn’t the brightest lantern on the hook. And that’s why, when the king happened by his mill one day, her father boasted that his daughter could spin straw into gold.
“Sounds good to me,” the greedy king said, and he had the maiden brought to his castle, where he locked her in a room heaped with straw. “If you don’t spin this straw into gold by morning,” he said, rather unkindly, “you’ll lose your head.”
The maiden, whose name was Gladys, halfheartedly tried to thread a piece of straw into the spinning wheel, but then sank to the straw and wept. Just then an odd little man appeared before her. His bald pate was lumpy, his nose crooked, and his ears droopy. But those features weren’t what made him peculiar: He was wearing a girdle—a nice silky-stretch lightweight girdle—over his britches. The maiden was about to ask him why he was sporting such a garment when he declared, in a nasally voice, “I know how to spin straw into gold! I can help you!”
“Oh would you?” she cried.
“No problem at all,” he said, wiping his crooked nose against his sleeve. “I’ll just need your necklace as payment.”
Gladys fingered her necklace and said, sadly, “It was my mother’s, but now it will be yours.”
And so the little man, whose name was Rumpledsplitseam, did as he promised. When the king arrived at dawn, he was amazed to see the maiden sitting amid piles of gold. So he put her through the paces twice more, and twice more Rumpledsplitseam appeared to save her. His payment the second night was her ring, and on the third night he demanded her firstborn.
Now remember, Gladys wasn’t too bright: When the avaricious king proposed after the third night, she happily accepted. One evening a year later, as she sat cradling her firstborn in her royal chamber, Rumpledsplitseam suddenly appeared and demanded the infant she had promised him. Gladys fell into a fit of agony, and her sobs were so great that the little man finally relented, but just slightly. If she could guess the name of his girdle within three nights, he said, she could keep the kid.
The first night she guessed Girdle to the Stars and Svelte Belt and Glorious Vandergirdle, but all to no avail. Her guesses fell short on the second night, and she was about to fail on the third as well when, stalling for time, she murmured, in admiration of the stylish garment, “I can’t believe it’s a girdle.” The little man shrieked and began stomping his foot so hard that he fell right through the floor, presumably into some sort of appropriate sub-dungeon. Fortunately, Gladys reached out just in time to yank his I Can’t Believe It’s a Girdle to safety.
With the help of the royal tailors, the girdle was fit for a queen. And soon all the ladies-in-waiting were displaying their girdles on the outside of their dresses, too, which made for some awkward ambles around the court.
