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WorksheetsLongfellow Battlers: Rump
Total questions: 20
Worksheet time: 20mins
Who wrote Rump?
Liesl Shurtliff
Gretl Shurtliff
Louisa Shurtliff
Marta and Brigitta Shurtliff
Although he didn't know it, twelve-year-old Rump was born within a magic "rumple" that bound him in the web of magic his mother died within. He has the ability to transform straw into gold, but he cannot bargain for that gold. He has a friend that warns him that magic is dangerous, and that with each thread he spins, he could weave himself deeper into the curse. What is his friend's name?
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
What life lessons can you learn from this book?
Names are important (c.f. Riding Freedom, and Shakespeare: "What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet").
A person's will (the metaphor for this in the story is the seed) is more powerful than their name and their destiny combined.
Gold will not make you "worth something," it isn't that simple. You have to find your own answers in life. Sometimes you have to go on a perilous journey (pixies, trolls, bullies, and foolish queens) to learn important lessons first hand.
You may find that at times, the closest thing to a friend that you have is someone who won't make fun of you (Red).
Small things can grow big, under the right circumstances (seed, Rump himself).
Rump's father died before he was born and his mother, Anna, a spinner from Yonder, died in childbirth. He was small when he was born and he stopped growing when he was 8. Frederick and Bruno, a couple of the mean miller's mean sons, are always bullying him. Then Gran dies. Does Rump have any other relatives?
Yes, it turns out he has three witch aunts in Yonder: Ida, Hadel, and Balthilda.
No, he is on his own with Nothing the donkey, Milk the goat, and a few chickens.
No, but the messenger-gnomes adopt him and raise him as one of their own in their underground lair.
No, but because the fierce little pixies love how he smells, they pick him up (it took a few hundred) and raise him as one of their own in their forest lair.
No, but after filling him up with sludge and getting him good and muddy the Trolls adopt him as one of their own, primarily because they liked his name.
What is Rump's nickname for King Bartholomew Archibald Reginald Fife?
King Barf
Your Highness
Which are some of the other fairy tales are referenced in this story? Check all that apply...
King Midas
Rapunzel
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Mirror of Erised, The Seven League Boots, and Jack and the Beanstalk
Little Red Riding Hood
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
On the Mountain they mine gold in exchange for food rations from the King (the food is grown in the Valley). Who manages the rations for the people of the Mountain?
the dishonest miller, Oswald
Gran
the chief gnome
Red
What other life lessons can you take from this story?
Regarding rhymes, when you say the words and the sounds match, it feels like everything in the world is in its place and whatever you say is powerful and true (c.f. The Phantom Tollbooth).
Life is awfully grim when you can't laugh at yourself. Stop feeling sorry for yourself: life goes on. Get to work (Gran). Stay on the path (Red).
Everyone is born and everyone dies (Gran). Things come full circle (Red's grandma -- the Witch of the Woods).
Watch your step; your actions have consequences, and every strength can become a weakness.
There will be times in your life when you are trapped, with high walls around you and no way out; then you will need someone from outside and above to throw down a rope and pull you up (Gran).
Who says, "Wash your hands, wipe your feet, give me a kiss, sit down and eat."
Gran (Elsbith)
Red
The Witch of the Woods
Mard
While getting firewood outside, Rump finds an old spinning wheel buried in the woodpile. When Rump asked Gran if he could have it for his birthday, she reluctantly agreed. He was drawn to it, encouraged by the pixies. What happened when he fed straw into it? Check all that apply...
He spun a lot of gold, which Frederick and Bruno saw through the window (the wicked Oswald had been having his sons keep a close watch on Rump, knowing that his mother could do the same thing).
Gran got sick, and Oswald, knowing he had gold, cut their rations, giving them sawdust and chalk. In desperation Rump takes his gold to Oswald, who offers him only 10 pounds of grain and 10 pounds of oats, not the carrots, honey, potatoes, and other yummy things he wanted, and yet he accepts the unfair trade.
Despite his and Red's mother's efforts, Gran dies after a three day fever. Her last words, as she tapped Rump on the heart, were "spin gold here."
Rump continued trading with Oswald to survive. He was numb: he stopped hoping anything good would happen and he stopped worrying anything bad would happen.
A Royal Procession unexpectedly comes to the Mountain, because the King is looking for the maker of the fine gold thread. He is led by Oswald to believe that the spinner is Opal, who is then taken away.
Kessler the Peddler, who has bright orange hair, is the only person from the Kingdom who every comes to the Mountain, except the tax collector. But he goes mad because he has used magic beyond his skill. What happens?
He transforms a bit of fluff into a mouse and then all the mice on the mountain chase him away.
He so badly wanted the honeycomb Red so carefully took from the log, he went crazy.
What is a stiltskin?
Pure magic at its greatest, able to free you from your bindings.
A covering for your stilts so you can use them in icy weather.
A friend who punches you and tells you that "you are an idiot."
What does Rump take with him besides food and water when he goes to the castle to try and rectify the situation with Opal?
his mother's bobbin, and Nothing
his mother's ruby slippers
Opal is desperate. When Rump asks her, "What will you give me?" she offers her necklace, her deceased mother's opal ring, and what else?
her first born child
a new car
What other life lessons can you take from this book?
Time is a trickster; when you have a lot to do it shrinks, but when you want something over with it stretches and yawns.
If someone is sincerely crying, there will be snot.
Gold won't feed a Kingdom; you can't neglect your crops and expect to feast (Martha). Less is more; simple needs make a simple life (Mard). Remember, greedy people often lose control (Hadel).
Some humans take a look at any living creature and only think of how they can use it (the ancient story of Bork the Brave); meanness is a choice (re: Frederick and Bruno).
Something you think is terrible could turn out to be wonderful (stepping on the sleeping pixies left him swollen and therefore later able to escape from the ropes that bound him -- although they caught him anyway).
Kindly Martha the cook patches Rump up after his fall out of the tower. Her son Helmut (or "Fluffy") comes to the kitchens to say hello. When she asks for his name, what name does Rump give her?
Robert
Rufus
Ronald
Reggie
Rump is snared when approaching a poisoned apple tree that grew from the magic apple from the Snow White story after a dwarf carelessly tossed it away. Mard, Bork, Slop, Gorp, Grot, and the other trolls turned out to be very nice, but were the apples that grew on the tree, in fact, poisonous?
yes of course
no -- the will of the seeds inside that poison apple turned out to be stronger than the (Maleficent) magic put on it
yes -- probably because they were in close proximity to the troll's hoard of magic items they were keeping safe from humans.
yes -- they had been fertilized with wormy sludge
Rump leaves Nothing with the trolls (who rename him Horace) and travels for four days until he finds the fork in the road leading to Yonder and Beyond. When he gets to Yonder an old man tells him of the Wool Witches, who turn out to be his aunts. Then what happens? Check all that apply...
He stays with them for months, eating good food and cake and all, and grows bigger, wears nice new clothes they make for him, and learns a bit about his mother's magical trap.
He watched Hadel spin threads, Balthilda knit, and Ida make pictures in the tapestries she made on the loom. While helping Hadel move pixie nests near winter, she learns that he is steeped the in the rumple but unfortunately doesn't know much about where he might get a stiltskin to get out of it.
Rump sends messages back and forth to Red through the gnomes and learns that Oswald is looking for him. Realizing that by staying he is putting his aunts in danger, he leaves for the kingdom to face his destiny.
Rump finds Oswald enraged with greed, as the King has realized Opal can't spin gold. He tells him he will return his friend Red to him unharmed if he spins a roomful of straw into gold over the next three days. Rump tells Opal to tell him his name if she wants her baby back.
Rump gets Frederick and Bruno to go with him to the apple tree, and they overhear him realize that his name is Rumpelstiltskin, which they tell their sister, and the baby is returned, but the gold does not go to Oswald since he hit Red and therefore she was not "unharmed."
Although eating the apple (at Bork's suggestion) removed a lot of fear from Rumpelstiltskin, he knew he had yet to undo the rumple involving baby Archie, Red, and the Miller. What did he do?
He tucked pixie nests gently into Archie's cradle (along with Opal's necklace and ring), and stomped them at just the right time (watch your step) so they would attack the Miller and he and Red could escape (with some pies from Martha).
He felt brave and strong enough to raise Archie on his own.
What did Rump find when he returned home? Check all that apply...
The seed he planted had grown into a hardy sapling.
His hometown looked a bit different, because he had changed.
When he said, "straw is straw," he found that he could spin straw without it turning into gold against his will (although the dust that sprang up from the straw was gold in color, of course).
Sometimes in his memories it felt like Gran was still with him.
