R

 

When the crucial meaning of a story is a character’s secret name, a name no-one must know, it seems a super-spoiler who uses the secret name for the story’s title. Even to use the character’s initial R in re-telling the story is to limit the possibilities of the secret name to one letter, rather than twenty-six. Be that as it may, R raises all sorts of questions and conjectures, whether we know his name or not. The original story is clear, he is a he. (Hehe!) R might be a figment of the girl’s imagination. He may equally well be the unexpected answer to her most desperate need. Unlike her, R can turn straw into gold. This is not elemental monetizing for the girl, whose very life depends on being able to turn straw into gold. Her interest is life itself, the desire to exist. So, as well as his secret name, R could be called Saviour, the Tempter. He is the Answer to her prayer, but he introduces his own Questions. R is a Q-figure, a mischief maker who seems to hold the key to what will happen next. Problem being, her father has actually claimed she can turn straw into gold. He is socially ambitious, able to believe what he says at the time regardless of whether it’s true. The king is very greedy. He is prepared to believe anything if it will extend his power. He will kill the girl if she doesn’t turn straw into gold. That is a threat and a promise. The king thinks this will make something happen, gold or death. Locked in her room she weeps. Then R appears and turns straw into gold for her, provided first she gives him her necklace, then her ring, and then a promise to hand across her first-born child. Such is the king’s happiness at seeing so much gold, he decides to marry the girl, poor though she be, and within a year they have a child. Quite forgetting her promise, she encounters one day soon this very same R, whose name may be Retribution or Repayment. She is even more bereft at the thought of losing her child than of not turning straw into gold. She, now the queen, had not imagined finding herself being in such a debt. This is more serious than any riches. But R provides her with an Answer. If the queen guesses his name, she keeps the child. Truly, it is extraordinary how many names there are in the world, just starting with the letter R. Each one possesses power well beyond its simple sound. For two days she comes up with an abundance of simple sounds, but they’re all fool’s gold. He laughs, for none of them are his name. On the third day a messenger tells the queen they had overheard while walking in the forest a song about a name, sung by someone fitting R’s description. It is the most extraordinary name and what were his parents thinking at the time. When R returns the last time, she teases him with names like Ruinator and Devil before spelling out this extraordinary name.  R recoils in anger at being found out. He finds himself being dragged into the earth, home of all that silent gold, and torn in two. (Hehe!)