Rapunzel

There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain
wished for a child. At length the woman hoped that God was
about to grant her desire. These people 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
rampion (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
ails you, dear wife?’ ’Ah,’ she replied, ’if I can’t eat some of the
rampion, which is in the garden behind our house, I shall die.’
The man, who loved her, thought: ’Sooner than let your wife
die, bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost what it
will.’ At twilight, he clambered down over the wall into the
garden of the enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of
rampion, 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 terribly afraid, for he saw the
enchantress standing before him. ’How can you dare,’ said she
with angry look, ’descend into my garden and steal my rampion
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 rampion 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 the case be as you say, I will allow
you to take away with you as much rampion 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 consented to
everything, and when the woman was brought to bed, 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 ells down, and the
enchantress climbed up by it.

After a year or two, it came to pass 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 resound. 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 by which
one mounts, 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 king’s son 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 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 skein
of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with
it, and when that is ready I will descend, 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 tresses,
wrapped them 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 ascended, but instead of
finding his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who
gazed at him with wicked and venomous 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 lament and
weep over the loss of his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in
misery for some years, and at length 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.