Spinning Silver
A bargain for a gold, a price to be paid, chilling winter frosts, and a mysterious creature with an unknown name...you know this story, but not like this.
The Facts
Text: Spinning Silver Author: Naomi Novik
Genre: Fairytale retelling, Year: 2016
Available: The Starlit Wood Anthology
The Fiction
As I entered the last two weeks of this project I had to ask myself if there was anything I really wanted to read and/or write about that I hadn't gotten to over the course of the year. One book stared accusingly back at me, one that had been on my bookshelf for years, that I always intended to read but somehow always got pushed down the To Read list. This book was The Starlit Wood, a book I picked up in a downtown Toronto bookstore while on a day out with friends years ago (much to their laughter as buying this book lived up to my reputation of being unable to walk into a bookstore without buying something). The Starlit Wood is an anthology of short stories written by established modern authors all of whom adapted a fairytale with the prompt to move it "beyond the woods", in other words to change and modernize it in some way. I wrote about adapting fairytales in the early weeks of this project, and so it seems fitting to return to the genre again in these final weeks.
The story I selected to read from the anthology (as I could pick anyone in any order) was Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. I picked this story because it was one I recognized the name of. In 2018 Novik adapted this short story into a critically acclaimed full length novel, one which had been recommended to me. (Although I have not read the full novel yet it is definitely on my To Read list now)
Spinning Silver adapts the fairytale Rumpelstiltskin. It is told from the first person perspective of Miryem, a moneylender's daughter. She narrates that her father is a moneylender, but not a very good one. A gentle and compassionate man, her father has loaned his rich wife's money to people of the village, but is not very firm in collecting on their debts, letting people walk over him and put him off for years. Miryem's family has slowly become destitute because of this, and one winter when her mother gets sick the little girl (its unclear exactly how old she is supposed to be) takes matters into her own hands.
Taking her father's ledgers Miryem freezes her heart with the cold of the winter that is killing her mother and goes to her neighbors. She demands people start to pay, and charges interest for the years they ignored her father. She makes enough to bring food home and takes over her father's business. Miryem is efficient and ruthless. No one in the village can put her off any longer, and slowly she brings her family from destitution to wealth. Her parent's despair at how cold she has become and one day while travelling through the woods Miryem angrily asks her mother if it is really so hard for her to have a daughter who can turn silver into gold.
Soon after the family receives a package at their door: a bag of 6 silver coins from a Staryk (basically a fae). Miryem realizes they have heard her boast about turning silver to gold and she must live up to the challenge. Since she has no magic powers she must make gold her own way. She goes to the city where she commissions a jeweler to melt the fairy silver into a ring and sell it, the gold profit from the craft she leaves outside the door for the Staryk. A few days later a Staryk noble appears before her with 60 pieces of silver, and then the next time 600. The Staryk tells if she won't complete the challenge he will freeze her to death (he has ice powers) and if she does he will make her his Queen.
Miryem completes the second challenge of 60 pieces with the same jewelry making method and knows she can complete the third challenge of 600 pieces but she despairs because as much as she doesn't want to die....she doesn't want to marry this creepy fairy and be his queen either. Her rich grandfather on her mother's side a moneylender himself and the member of the family who most understands Miryem tells her she must win the challenge then, but make the Staryk not want to honor the promise of marriage.
At the conclusion to the story Miryem presents the Staryk with the gold made by selling a crown made from the 600 silver pieces. She then tells the Staryk she will not make gold for him if he makes her his queen, but if he wants her to keep making gold he should make her his banker. The Staryk agrees, and Miryem, successful, moves to the city to live a successful and happy life, occasionally receiving bags of fairy silver which she returns as gold for her client.
(This is a brief summary of the story, there are side plots and details I wasn't able to get into, really I recommend reading this one to get the full picture)
The Feeling
This is a great short story and I would absolutely read the novel that fleshes it out even more! This story does everything you want a retelling to do: it honors and references the original while also modernizing the themes and pushing te story forward. In the author's note for this story Novik writes that the original Rumpelstiltskin was always a story that disturbed her, particularly in the way the original Rumpelstiltskin was portrayed: he was a skilled creature honoring his side of the bargain who got cheated in the end because the pretty heroine didn't want to pay for his services. Then there are the anti-Semitic undertones to the story, those of a long nosed goblin like creature with an affinity for gold trying to take a blonde baby, and being harshly villainized by the narrative. Historically this is not historically a great characterization of Jewish people.
Novik wanted to write a story without those disturbing anti-Semitic undertones (Miryem is Jewish and the story takes time to make reference to this, which is some positive representation for the community) and she also wanted to write a story that empowered the girl who makes the bargain. Miryem is an excellent and fascinating protagonist. She is a rational and clever character not given to flights of fancy but deeply practical, which is rare and cool thing to see in a female fairytale protagonist. She describes herself and is described multiple times in the story as "cold." She looks at the word with suspicion and demands what she is owed from it. While there is a lot of potential in that kind of outlook for a villain or an anti-hero Miryem is carefully balanced to have enough morality to firmly remain a hero, albeit a really interesting one.
That's another great thing about this story. There is no talk of romance or selling one's first born in this fairytale. Miryem is good with numbers, money, and business and while not everyone in her family understands this about her these are the skills she uses to survive the Staryk's challenge. It's very different but very refreshing to read a female protagonist in a fantasy/fairytale setting who not only is cold and logical but whose stength and 'super power' comes from those very traits.
Like the fairytale genre this story is inspired by Spinning Silver mixes the wonder and delight of the magical and strange with elements of horror and violence. The Staryk is an antagonist who is not necessarily evil (not by his own code of morality) but definitely isn't comforting and good either. His presence in the story is always chilling. Of course Novik knows monsters don't always come from the dark woods. Many of them are human, which we see in the heart-racing scene where a human cart driver taking Miryem with the 60 gold pieces she makes in the second challenge attempts to rob and kill her. Like the classic fairytales this modern retelling does not shy away from the dark in a story.
There was a lot to love about this week's story and I can see why Novik was drawn to continue it into a full length novel. Some short stories just wont let us go and they linger with us. Spinning Silver is one those stories that just glimmers with potential.
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