...It didn't seem human to the miller's daughter, in fact

when she saw it she was so sure that it was just her

imagination playing tricks on her. But it was there right in

front of her smiling in the sunlight. The creature was small

and wore tattered clothes which were so dirty that their

colour couldn't be seen anymore.

The miller's daughter looked back down at her work still trying to understand how she could spin the straw into gold. She hoped that the creature hadn't seen her looking at it and that it would soon go. She was wrong, it stayed there looking at her while she pretended to focus on her work. Finally, she decided to speak.

"Are you here to see the king?" she asked with hesitation. The creature spoke like it had known her for a long time. "No, I'm here to help you." The miller's daughter looked up in shock: had the king brought the creature up here asking it to help her?

"No he hasn't", said the creature as if it had read her mind.

"How do you know?" said the miller's daughter carefully seeing that the creature could read her mind. She didn't know what she was doing, she hadn't even asked for its name, if it had one.

The creature looked at her puzzled, but the miller's daughter knew he was trying to figure out what she was thinking. Then the creature spoke again: "I cannot tell you my name, but I can help you turn this straw into gold."

So every day the creature helped the miller's daughter turn the straw into gold, and each day the king set out more straw. Finally, one day the king saw that the miller's daughter had done enough, so he stopped setting out more straw for her, still each day the creature came. At last the miller's daughter told it that she no longer needed its help so the creature never came back.

The miller's daughter had promised to pay the creature back some time by helping it. But as the as the years passed she forgot about the promise she had made...

Lavinia