Rapunzel

Once upon a time there lived a man and a woman who had long wished for a child, but for many years no child came to them. At last the woman began to hope that God was about to grant her wish. Now, at the back of their house these people had a little window, and from it they could look down into a splendid garden, full of the most beautiful flowers and herbs. But the garden was surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to go into it, for it belonged to an enchantress, who had great power and was feared by everyone in the world.

One day the woman was standing at this window, looking down into the garden, when her eyes fell upon a bed planted with the finest rapunzel greens. They looked so fresh and green that she longed for them, and felt the greatest desire to eat some. This desire grew stronger every day, and since she knew she could never have any, she began to waste away, growing pale and miserable. Her husband was alarmed and asked, "What is the matter with you, dear wife?"

"Oh," she answered, "if I can't have some of the rapunzel from the garden behind our house to eat, I shall die."

The man, who loved her dearly, thought to himself, "Rather than let my wife die, I will fetch her some of the rapunzel, whatever it costs." So in the dusk of evening he climbed over the wall into the enchantress's garden, hurriedly snatched a handful of the greens, and brought them to his wife. She made herself a salad of them at once and ate them eagerly. But they tasted so good to her, so very good, that the next day she longed for them three times as much as before. If she was to have any peace, her husband would have to climb down into the garden once more.

So in the dusk of evening he let himself down again. But when he had climbed down the wall he was terribly frightened, for there before him stood the enchantress.

"How dare you," she said with an angry look, "come climbing into my garden and steal my rapunzel like a thief? You shall pay for this!"

"Oh," he answered, "please let mercy take the place of justice. I only did it out of need. My wife saw your rapunzel from our window, and she felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she could not have some to eat."

At that the enchantress let her anger soften, and she said to him, "If it is as you say, then I will let you take away as much rapunzel as you like, but on one condition. You must give me the child your wife is about to bring into the world. It shall be well cared for, and I will look after it like a mother."

In his terror the man agreed to everything, and when the woman's time came, the enchantress appeared at once, named the child Rapunzel, and carried her away.

Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her up in a tower that stood in a forest. The tower had neither stairs nor door, and only a little window at the very top. When the enchantress wished to come in, she stood below and called out:

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair to me."

Rapunzel had long and magnificent hair, as fine as spun gold. When she heard the enchantress's voice, she would unbind her braids and wind them around a hook at the window, and then her hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it.

After a year or two it happened that the King's son rode through the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song so lovely that he stopped still and listened. It was Rapunzel, who in her loneliness passed the time by letting her sweet voice ring out. The King's son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for a door in the tower, but there was none to be found. He rode home, but the singing had touched his heart so deeply that every day he went out into the forest to listen. Once, as he stood behind a tree, he saw the enchantress come to the tower, and he heard her call:

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair."

Then Rapunzel let down her braids, and the enchantress climbed up to her. "If that is the ladder by which one climbs up," he said, "then I will try my own luck for once." And the next day, as it began to grow dark, he went to the tower and called:

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair."

At once the hair fell down, and the King's son climbed up.

At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened, for she had never before set eyes on a man. But the King's son began to speak to her kindly, and told her that his heart had been so stirred by her song that it had given him no peace, and he had had to come and see her. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked whether she would take him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought, "He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does." So she said yes and laid her hand in his.

"I will gladly go away with you," she said, "but I do not know how to get down. Each time you come, bring a skein of silk with you, and I will weave a ladder from it. When it is finished, I will climb down, and you will take me away on your horse." They agreed that until then he should come to her every evening, for the old woman came by day.

The enchantress noticed nothing of all this, until one day Rapunzel said to her, "Tell me, Dame Gothel, how does it happen that you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young King's son? He is with me in a moment."

"Oh, you wicked child!" cried the enchantress. "What is this I hear you say! I thought I had cut you off from all the world, and yet you have deceived me!"

In her fury she seized Rapunzel's beautiful hair, wound it a few times around her left hand, took up a pair of scissors in her right, and snip, snap, the braids were cut off, and the lovely tresses lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless that she carried poor Rapunzel off to a desolate wilderness, where she had to live in great sorrow and misery.

But on the very same day that she cast out Rapunzel, the enchantress fastened the cut-off braids to the hook at the window, and when the King's son came that evening and called:

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,"

she let the hair down. The King's son climbed up, but at the top he did not find his dearest Rapunzel. Instead he found the enchantress, who glared at him with wicked, venomous eyes.

"Aha!" she cried mockingly. "You have come to fetch your darling, but the pretty bird no longer sits in its nest and sings. The cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her again."

The King's son was beside himself with grief, and in his despair he leaped down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes. Then he wandered blind through the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries, and did nothing but weep and lament over the loss of his dearest wife. So he roamed about in misery for some years, and at last came to the wilderness where Rapunzel lived wretchedly with the twins she had borne, a boy and a girl.

He heard a voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he went toward it. As he came near, Rapunzel knew him and fell upon his neck and wept. Two of her tears wet his eyes, and they grew clear again, so that he could see with them as well as before. He led her back to his kingdom, where he was received with joy, and they lived a long while afterward, happy and content.