And when the girl was brought to him, the king took her
into a room which was quite full of straw, gave her
aspinning wheel and a reel, and said, “Now set to work,
and if by morning you have not spun this straw into gold,
you must die.” So there sat the poor miller’s daughter, and
for the life of her, she could not tell what to do—she had no
idea how straw could be spun into gold.
—“Rumpelstiltskin” by the Brothers Grimm