Rapunzel
There were once a man and a woman who had long wished for a
child – but without any luck.
At last, the woman hoped that God was about to grant her
desire. They had a little window at the back of their house
from which a splendid garden could be seen, which was full
of the most
beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by
a high
wall, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to
an
enchantress, who had great power and was dreaded by all the
world.
One day the woman was standing by this window and looking
down into the
garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most
beautiful
plant called a rapunzel, and it looked so fresh and green
that she longed
for it, she quite pined away, and began to look pale and
miserable.
Then her husband was alarmed, and asked: ‘What troubles you,
dear wife?’
‘Ah,’ she replied, ‘if I can’t eat some of the rapunzel,
which is in
the garden behind our house, I shall die.’
The man, who loved her, thought: ‘Sooner than let your wife
die,
better bring her some of the rapunzel – let it cost you what
it will.’
When it was getting dark, he clambered down
over the wall into the garden of the enchantress, hastily
clutched a
handful of the rapunzel plant and took it to his wife. She
at once made herself
a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It tasted so good to
her–so very
good, that the next day she longed for it three times as
much as
before. If he was to have any rest, her husband must once
more descend
into the garden. In the gloom of evening therefore, he let
himself
down again; but when he had clambered down the wall he was
struck with terror, for he saw the enchantress standing before him. ‘
“How can you dare,’ said she with angry look, ‘Climb down
into my garden and steal my
rapunzel like a thief? You shall suffer for it!’
‘Ah,’ answered he, ‘let mercy take the place of justice, I
only made up my mind to do it
out of necessity. My wife saw your rapunzel from the window,
and felt
such a longing for it that she would have died if she had
not got some
to eat.’
Then the enchantress allowed her anger to be softened, and
said to him: ‘If you speak the truth, I will allow you to
take away
with you as much rapunzel as you will, only I make one
condition, you
must give me the child which your wife will bring into the
world; it
shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a
mother.’
The man in his terror agreed to everything, and when the
child was born, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the child the name of
Rapunzel, and took it away with her.
Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun.
When she
was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower,
which lay
in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at
the top was
a little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she
placed
herself beneath it and cried:
‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.’
Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and
when she
heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her
braided tresses,
wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and
then the
hair fell twenty yards 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,
which was so
charming that he stood still and listened. This was
Rapunzel, who in
her solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice sing
out. The
king’s son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the
door of the
tower, but none was to be found. He rode home, but the
singing had so
deeply touched his heart, that every day he went out into
the forest
and listened to it. Once when he was thus standing behind a
tree, he
saw that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she
cried:
‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.’
Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the
enchantress
climbed up to her. ‘If that is the ladder that leads to the
top, I too
will try my fortune,’ said he, and the next day when it
began to grow
dark, he went to the tower and cried:
‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.’
Immediately the hair fell down and the prince climbed up.
At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such
as her eyes
had never yet beheld, came to her; but the king’s son began
to talk to
her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had
been so
stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he had been
forced to
see her. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her
if 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 the enchantress
does’; and she said yes, and laid her hand in his.
She said: ‘I will willingly go away with you, but I do not
know how to get down. Bring
with you a ball of silk every time that you come, and I will
weave a
ladder with it, and when that is ready I will climb down,
and you will
take me on your horse.’ They agreed that until that time he
should
come to her every evening, for the old woman came by day.
The
enchantress remarked nothing of this, until once Rapunzel
said to her:
‘Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that you are so much heavier
for
me to draw up than the young king’s son–he is with me in a
moment.’
‘Ah! you wicked child,’ cried the enchantress. ‘What do I
hear you
say! I thought I had separated you from all the world, and
yet you
have deceived me!’ In her anger she clutched Rapunzel’s
beautiful
hair, wrapped it twice round her left hand, seized a pair of
scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut off,
and the
lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless
that she took
poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great
grief and
misery.
On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the
enchantress
fastened the braids of hair, which she had cut off, to the
hook of the
window, and when the king’s son came and cried:
‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.’
she let the hair down. The king’s son climbed, but instead
of finding
his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at
him with
wicked and poisonous looks. ‘Aha!’ she cried mockingly, ‘you
would
fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer
singing in
the nest; 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 pain, and in his despair he leapt
down from
the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into
which he fell
pierced his eyes. Then he wandered quite blind about the
forest, ate
nothing but roots and berries, and did naught but and weep
over
the loss of his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in misery
for some
years, and at last came to the desert where Rapunzel, with
the twins
to which she had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in
wretchedness.
He heard a voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he
went
towards it, and when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and
fell on his
neck and wept. Two of her tears wetted his eyes and they
grew clear
again, and he could see with them as before. He led her to
his kingdom
where he was joyfully received, and they lived for a long
time
afterwards, happy and contented.
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