Rip Van Winkle wanders off to a mountain haunt in the Catskills. There he encounters a strange crew of dwarfs, whose powerful brew lulls him into a 20-year slumber.
The miller Hanz Franz has bragged to one and all that his daughter Elsa can spin straw into gold. The poor girl is spirited away by the Royal Tax Collector Lord Karsch and locked in a room in the palace of the King.