Rumpelstiltskin made Sif's golden hair.

A National Geographic article on the Brothers Grimm exploring the motives & origins of their fairy tale collection uses a photo of a field of barley at dawn covered in golden light catching dew to accent this lift quote from Rumpelstiltskin:

If by to-morrow morning early you have not spun this straw into gold during the night, you must die.

The article's photo caption poetically reads, "The alchemy of dawn turns barley into gold." This evoked an insightful NorsePlay: Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology linguistically associated Sif's hair with a golden moss plant, and later scholar Hilda Ellis Davidson agreed that her hair was the golden wheat.

Such interpretations link the Skáldskaparmál story of the theft & replacement of Sif's Golden Hair as a fertility analog for the harvesting & annual re-growth of wheat, barley, and other crops, which makes Sif associated with grain.

In terms of cosmology, Thor's lightning strikes the field and brings rain, which then makes fertile the crops that are Sif's hair, and functionally consummates their marriage in this manifestation.

When Loki cuts Sif's hair, we have a threat & interruption to that annual field of plenty, and it is Thor's justifiable counter-threat that makes Loki seek out the dwarven master blacksmithing Sons of Ivaldi to craft a replacement cap of magically bonding hair made of actual gold.

Given the diminutive imp stature of Rumpelstiltskin and his ability to turn straw into gold, one could spot the possibly dwarven roots of this character. Also the imp's price for this is the Miller's Daughter's firstborn, and much like the competing dwarves Sindri & Brokkr who ask for flesh as compensation, they demand Loki's head as their labour price should they win the crafting contest.

Rumpelstiltskin as a tale gets classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as a "The Name of the Helper" (type ATU 500), where the secret name of the monster is what releases one from the compromising bargain -- much like the legend of King Olaf bargaining with the troll to build the church in Avaldsnes, Norway. If the kirk is made within a specified time then said troll gets the sun, moon, or Olaf's soul, but Olaf finds out the troll's true name and stops him before laying the last stone. And yes, this also totally resembles the story of the Master Builder in Gylfaginning, and is a post-conversion adaptation, so that could also be brought to bear on Rumpelstiltskin as well.

Yet the agricultural landscape parallel to the Sif's golden hair dynamic in the Grimms' tale adds an even stronger association given the above context. And as usual on NorsePlay, all this only serves to show that it always goes back to the Norse Lore.

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Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants at age seven. Since then he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the Map of Midgard project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay. If you have employment/opportunities in investigative mythology, field research, or product development to offer, do contact him.