Mythology & Folklore influenced Spinning Silver

Spinning Silver is Rumpelstiltskin argued with. In the tale a miller's daughter is claimed by a creature who spins straw into gold; Naomi Novik gives the claim to a moneylender's daughter who really can turn silver into gold, by being good at her job, and who then negotiates. Novik has written about the antisemitism inside the original: the small malevolent figure who lends at a price and is owed, and what that figure stood in for. Her Miryem is Jewish, her family are the village's lenders, and the hostility they meet is the tale's own subtext made explicit. The Staryk, the winter king who comes down the frozen road, comes from Slavic and Baltic folklore rather than from Grimm.