Published in 2021, Marissa Meyer’s Gilded is a young adult dark fantasy novel that retells the classic fairy tale of “Rumpelstiltskin.” The first installment in a duology, the novel follows Serilda, a miller’s daughter cursed by the god of lies with an uncontrollable gift for spinning fantastical tales. When one of her stories attracts the attention of the tyrannical Erlking and his undead hunters, she is forced into a grim world of ghosts and monsters and ordered to perform the impossible task of spinning straw into gold. In her desperation, Serilda makes a bargain with a mysterious boy who appears to help her, a pact that draws her deeper into the secrets of a haunted castle and an ancient curse. Meyer is a #1 New York Times-bestselling author known for her fairy-tale retellings, including the popular young adult science fiction series The Lunar Chronicles and the standalone novel Heartless. Gilded was a #1 New York Times and indie bestseller and was named one of the New York Times’s Best Children’s Books of 2021.

The novel inverts the traditional structure of its source material by portraying the king as a villain and the Rumpelstiltskin figure as a cursed, sympathetic hero. This reimagining shifts the story’s focus to an exploration of resisting tyranny and breaking generational curses. The narrative is heavily influenced by Germanic folklore, particularly the myth of the Wild Hunt—a spectral procession of hunters—and the malevolent figure of the Erlking, or Erlkönig, popularized in a 1782 poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Meyer combines these legends, making the Erlking the leader of the Wild Hunt. The novel explores themes such as The Power and Peril of Storytelling, Finding Agency Within Restrictive Boundaries, and The Façade of Beauty and the Nature of Monstrosity. The story concludes on a cliffhanger that is resolved in its sequel, Cursed.

This guide is based on the 2024 Square Fish edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of graphic violence, child death, and illness or death.

Plot Summary

Gilded reimagines the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin within a world inspired by Germanic folklore, where a magical barrier called the veil separates the mortal realm from the domain of the dark ones—immortal demons who long ago escaped from Verloren, the underworld ruled by the god of death. The veil falls only on full moons, equinoxes, and solstices, releasing the Wild Hunt, a cavalcade of hellhounds, ghostly riders, and their leader, the Erlking, into the mortal world.

Serilda, an 18-year-old miller’s daughter, narrates her own origin story in the prologue. Nineteen years earlier, during a rare Endless Moon when the winter solstice coincided with a full moon, the Erlking and his hunt wounded a god in the Aschen Wood. The next morning, Serilda’s father found the dying beast, pulled an arrow from its wing, and watched it transform into Wyrdith, the trickster god of stories, fortune, and lies. Wyrdith granted the miller a wish: a healthy child with the village girl he loved. The wish was fulfilled, but the child was marked with pitch-black irises overlaid by golden wheels, the sign of Wyrdith. Serilda grew up shunned by the suspicious villagers of Märchenfeld and developed an habit of telling elaborate lies.

As the story opens, Serilda volunteers at the village school, where she clashes with the strict schoolmistress, Madam Sauer, over the fantastical stories Serilda tells her five young students: Hans, Anna, the twins Fricz and Nickel, and little Gerdrut. These children are the only people in Märchenfeld who accept Serilda without reservation.

That night, on the full Snow Moon, two moss maidens, named Parsley and Meadowsweet, arrive at Serilda’s door fleeing the Wild Hunt. Serilda hides them in the root cellar and masks their scent with onion. When the Erlking arrives and demands to know where the creatures have gone, Serilda panics and blurts out that she is harvesting straw to spin into gold, a blessing from Hulda, the god of labor. The Erlking notices the golden wheels in her eyes and misinterprets them as Hulda’s mark. He departs, and the grateful moss maidens give Serilda a gold ring bearing a creature called a tatzelwurm seal entwined around the letter R, and a gold locket containing a portrait of a young girl with golden curls.

A month later, on the Hunger Moon, a ghostly coachman named Manfred summons Serilda to Adalheid, a walled lakeside city whose castle sits on an island. The Erlking reveals he has seen through her lie and sets her a test: spin a dungeon full of straw into gold before sunrise, or he will kill her and her father. Locked in the dungeon, Serilda weeps until a copper-haired boy her age appears by magic. He introduces himself as Gild, calls himself the castle’s resident poltergeist, and offers to spin the straw into gold in exchange for the locket. Serilda agrees, and the air pulses as the magical bargain seals. While Gild spins, Serilda tells him a story about the Erlking stealing a princess for his paramour Perchta, the great huntress, and the princess’s brother, a prince, who shot Perchta through the heart but arrived too late to save his sister.

The next morning, the Erlking is astonished by the bobbins full of gold and releases Serilda. Manfred warns her that the Erlking never lets go of the things he claims. When Serilda wakes after sunrise, the veil has returned, and the castle lies in ruins. She flees to the town, where she meets Lorraine, Adalheid’s mayor, Lorraine’s daughter Leyna, and Frieda, the town librarian. At home, Serilda’s father reveals that her mother was lured away by the Wild Hunt when Serilda was two and never returned. Terrified, he insists they flee their home before the next full moon.

On the Crow Moon, the Erlking finds them despite their precautions. Serilda is swept up in the hunt, while her father is thrown from his horse and vanishes. At the castle, Gild appears and comforts Serilda, accepting the moss maiden’s ring as payment to spin an even larger pile of straw. As the Erlking’s footsteps approach, Gild kisses Serilda, quick and desperate, then vanishes. Serilda’s father never returns home.

On the spring equinox, Serilda travels to Adalheid for the Feast of Death, an annual tradition in which townspeople release game animals for the Wild Hunt to chase through the streets in exchange for leaving their families alone. From Leyna, Serilda learns about Vergoldetgeist, the Gilded Ghost—a mysterious figure who leaves gifts of spun gold behind the castle every equinox, sustaining Adalheid’s prosperity for generations. Serilda realizes Vergoldetgeist is Gild. She sneaks into the castle and discovers a shredded tapestry depicting a skull-faced king and a girl resembling the locket portrait. In the weeks that follow, Serilda, Leyna, and Frieda find nameless gravestones in the town cemetery with their inscriptions magically erased—one bears the same tatzelwurm seal as the ring. During Serilda’s romance with Gild deepens as they share a second kiss, and he vanishes mid-embrace when the veil returns at sunrise.

On the Chaste Moon, Gild cannot perform his magic without payment, but Serilda has nothing left to offer. Desperately, she promises her firstborn child, and the bargain seals. Gild finishes the enormous pile, and the two make love. The next morning, the Erlking reveals a menagerie of caged magical creatures bound by golden chains braided from the gold Serilda has previously delivered. He explains that god-blessed spun gold is the only material that can bind magical creatures, and he intends to use it to capture a god during the coming Endless Moon and demand a wish.

Serilda seeks help from Pusch-Grohla, the ancient leader of the moss maidens, who confirms the gold’s power and warns that the Erlking may wish for Perchta’s return from Verloren. Pusch-Grohla offers a death draft, a potion to temporarily kill Serilda and convince the Erlking’s spies she is dead. Back in Märchenfeld, Serilda discovers her father’s body has returned as a nachzehrer, an undead revenant. It attacks her before Madam Sauer arrives and destroys the creature. Madam Sauer reveals herself as an herbalist allied with the forest folk and Pusch-Grohla’s messenger. She prepares the death draft, instructing Serilda to grip an ash branch throughout so that her spirit is not permanently lost to Verloren.

The next month, Serilda takes the potion by the river. Her spirit separates from her body, and she nearly follows the god of death before gripping the branch. That night, the Erlking, believing her dead, departs after laying a gold-tipped arrow in her hand. At dawn, Madam Sauer revives her.

But the Erlking has taken his revenge. Serilda discovers the bodies of four of her five students, their hearts torn out. Gerdrut is missing. Serilda storms into the castle ruins and narrates aloud the true history she has pieced together: The Erlking massacred the royal family of Adalheid, cursed the prince to forget his identity, and tethered his spirit to the castle forever. As she speaks, a doorway opens in the veil, and she steps through.

On the other side, the Erlking waits with the children’s ghosts. He orders Serilda to spin before the assembled court, but she cannot. Realizing she is pregnant with Gild’s child, she tells the Erlking her magic has transferred to the unborn baby. He relents and announces he will marry her and claim the child as his own. He drives a gold-tipped arrow through her wrist, separating her spirit from her body and tethering her to the castle, the same curse he placed on the prince. He assigns the murdered children’s ghosts as her attendants and promises to release their spirits only after Serilda gives birth and surrenders the child. Serilda discovers with horror that Gerdrut is also dead.

In a private moment, Gild finds Serilda, and she reveals the truth: He is the cursed prince, the girl in the locket was his sister, and the Erlking murdered his family and erased their names from history. She does not tell Gild about her pregnancy, maintaining the fiction that the Erlking is the father. Serilda resolves to free the children, break Gild’s curse, stop the Erlking from capturing a god, and protect her unborn child, all while trapped behind the veil as the Erlking’s unwilling bride. The story continues in the sequel, Cursed.