Rapunzel

There once lived a man and his wife who had long wished for a child, but in vain. Now there was at the back of their house a little window which overlooked a beautiful garden full of the finest vegetables and flowers; but there was a high wall all round it, and no one ventured into it, for it belonged to a witch of great might, and of whom all the world was afraid. One day, when the wife was standing at the window, and looking into the garden, she saw a bed filled with the finest rampion; and it looked so fresh and green that she began to wish for some almost as if under a spell; and at length she longed for it greatly. This went on for days, and as she knew she could not get the rampion, she pined away, and grew pale and miserable.


Then the man was uneasy, and asked, “What is the matter, dear wife?” “Oh,” answered she, “I shall die unless I can have some of that rampion to eat. The man, who loved her very much, thought to himself, “Rather than lose my wife, I will get some rampion, cost what it may.”

So in the twilight, he climbed over the wall and into the witch’s garden, plucked it hastily and brought it to his wife. She made a salad of it at once, and ate of it to her heart’s content. But she liked it so much, and it tasted so good, that the next day she longed for it thrice as much as she had done before; if she was to have any rest, the man must climb over the wall once more. So he went in twilight again; and as he was climbing back, he saw, all at once, the witch standing before him, and was terribly frightened, as she cried with angry eyes, “How dare you climb over into my garden like a thief and steal my rampion! It shall be the worse for you!”

“Oh,” answered he, “be merciful rather than just; I have only done it through necessity; for my wife saw your rampion out of the window, and became possessed with so great a longing that she would have died if she could not have had some to eat.”

Then the witch said, “If it is all as you saw, you may have as much rampion as you like, on one condition- the child that will come into the world must be given to me. You have poisoned her with your theft of the herb. Your child will be beautiful beyond all imagining, but she can never live among normal folk.

In his distress of mind the man promised everything; and when the time came and the child was born, the witch appeared , and giving the child the name Rapunzel (which is the same as rampion), she took it away with her.

As the witch had promised, Rapunzel was the most beautiful child in the world, but the rampion had poisoned the girl’s soul and cursed her with the gaze of the gorgon, so that any man who looked upon her would instantly be turned into stone. When she was twelve, in order to protect the world from the child’s evil gaze, the witch shut her up in a tower in the midst of the woods. But the child would sing her sweet song to passers-by so that she could drink their souls, leaving behind only a stony shell, and so the witch sealed all the doors leaving only a small window at the top of the tower. When the witch wished to be let in, she would stand below and cry, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”

Rapunzel had beautiful long hair that shone like gold. When she heard the voice of the witch she would undo the fastening of the upper window, unbind plaits of her hair, and let it down the twenty feet below, and the witch would climb up by it.

After they had lived thus for a few years it happened that as the King’s son was riding through the wood, he came to the tower; and as he drew near he heard a voice singing so sweetly that he stood still and listened. It was Rapunzel, once more casting her song upon the wind to lure in travelers. The King’s son wished to go in to her and sought to find a door in the tower, but there was none. So he rode home, but the song had entered into his heart, and every day he went into the wood and listened.

Once, as he was standing there under a tree, he saw the witch come up, and listened while she called out, “Oh, Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”

Then he saw how Rapunzel let down her long tresses, and how the witch climbed up by them and went in to her, and he said to himself, “Since that is the ladder, I will climb it, and seek my fortune.” And the next day, as soon as it began to grow dusk, he went to the tower and cried, “Oh Rapunzel, Rapunzel! Let down your hair!” And she let down her hair and the King’s son climbed up.

Rapunzel thought first to devour the soul of the young man, but in him she saw means of escaping from her stony prison and so as the King’s son entered, the evil girl hid her face behind a screen. The King’s son spoke to her kindly told her how her singing had entered his heart, so that he would have no peace until he could be with her. He asked her to be his wife and she agreed saying, “I would willingly go with you, but I do not know how I should get out. When you come, bring a silken rope, and I will make it into a ladder, and when it is quite ready I will get down by it, and you shall take me away on your horse.”

They agreed that he should come to her the following evening, as the old woman came in the day time. So the witch knew nothing of all this until Rapunzel said to her unwittingly, “Mother Gothel, how is it that you climb up so slowly when the King’s son is with me in only a moment?”

“O, wicked child”, cried the witch, “what is this I hear! I thought I had hidden you from the world, and you have betrayed me!” In her anger, she seized Rapunzel by her beautiful hair, struck her several times with her left hand, and then grasping a pair of shears in her right – snip, snap - the beautiful locks lay on the ground. And because she had come to understand that she could not keep the girl close and prevent her from causing harm, she took Rapunzel and put her in a waste and deserted palace, where she lived in great woe and misery.

The same day on which she took Rapunzel away she went back to the tower and made fast the severed locks of hair to the window-hasp, and the King’s son came and cried, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel! Let down your hair!”

Then she let the hair down, and the King’s son climbed up, but instead of his dearest Rapunzel he found the witch looking at him with wicked glittering eyes.

“Aha!” cried she, “you came for your darling, but the sweet bird sits no longer in the nest, and sings no more. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will see her no more. But be grateful for your soul is saved.”

The King’s son was beside himself with grief, and in his agony he sprang from the tower; he escaped with life, but the thorns on which he fell put out his eyes. Then he wandered blind through the wood, eating nothing but roots and berries, and doing nothing but lament and weep for the loss of his dearest Rapunzel.

So he wandered several years in misery until at last he came to the desert place where Rapunzel lived. At first he heard a voice that he thought he knew, and when he reached the places from which it seemed to come, Rapunzel knew him, and fell on his neck and wept and wept for she had not seen another soul since the witch had cast her out. And when her tears touched his eyes they became clear again. The instant his sight was recovered, his vision was filled with Rapunzel’s shinning image and his soul was lost to her as his body was turned to stone.