Marissa Meyer’s Gilded reinterprets the classic fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin,” blending it with iconic elements of Germanic folklore, particularly the myth of the Wild Hunt and the figure of the Erlking. Rumpelstiltskin was first published by 19^th-century German scholars, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (collectively called the Brothers Grimm), in their 1812 collection of fairytales, Children’s and Household Tales. In the original story, a miller’s daughter is saved from a greedy king by a magical creature who spins straw into gold in exchange for her firstborn child. The narrative’s tension centers on the transactional nature of her bargain, which places the miller’s daughter and the imp at odds, prompting her quest to discover the creature’s name to save her baby.

Meyer inverts the structure of the original tale by weaving in the figure of the Erlking as a monstrous villain and casting the Rumpelstiltskin figure, Gild, as a sympathetic, cursed hero. The Erlking, or Erlkönig, is a key figure in German folklore, popularized by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1782 poem of the same name. In Goethe’s ballad, the Erlking is a sinister supernatural being who lures a young boy to his death. Meyer fuses two mythic elements by making her Erlking the leader of the Wild Hunt—a spectral procession of phantom hunters storming across the sky–a tradition found across Europe but extensively documented in a Germanic context by Jacob Grimm in his 1835 work, Deutsche Mythologie.

Traditionally, the appearance of the Wild Hunt was considered an omen of catastrophe, war, or death, and its leaders were often identified with pagan gods like Odin. Meyer integrates this legend as a central element of her world, depicting the hunt as a terrifying force that seeks “lost souls and aimless drunkards and naughty children” (1). This cultural context grounds the novel’s fantasy in a specific, dark folkloric tradition, imbuing the world with a sense of ancient, malevolent power and making the threat posed by the Erlking and his hunt feel both mythic and immediate.

Meyer differentiates Serilda from the miller’s daughter in the original tale by framing her initial lie about her gold-spinning abilities as an act of kindness. Her attempt to protect the moss maidens from the tyranny of the Erlking nuances Meyer’s version of the character, contrasting the villagers’ view of Serilda as a bad omen with her innate empathy and selflessness. By transforming the Erlking into the primary antagonist, Meyer creates the opportunity for a love story between Gild and Serilda that propels the duology, transforming a cautionary tale about making reckless promises into a dark love story about resisting tyrannical power and breaking ancient curses.