Rumpelstiltskin, the last of his kind, dances alone in the darkness before a leaping fire, casting a giant shadow on a craggy mountain face as he relates in ominous verse his plan to “find a child of my own to chase away the dark.” Huddled around a fire in a primitive, nomadic village, Uta conspires with his mother to swindle the king out of his yearly tribute by inventing a false prophecy that his daughter, Alana, would, at the first full moon of each year, spin straw into gold. As Rumpelstiltskin peeks out from a nomads tent, Alana is abducted by the king and his reluctant son Marius, and taken to the king’s castle, where she is sent to work spinning straw into gold. In the castle the mood brightens as romance blossoms between Marius and Alana and comedy reigns among the royal servants: Old Nanny, Cook, Birdy and her niece Pigeon. Still, the rhyming Rumpelstiltskin is manipulating every step of the way, and there is always the underlying unease that he will appear and exact his dreadful payment.