Once upon a time there lived a man and his wife who were very sad
because they had no children. These people had a little window at the
back of their house which overlooked a beautiful garden full of fine
flowers and herbs. There was a high wall around this garden, and no one
dared to go into it, because it belonged to a witch of great power, who
was feared by everybody.
One day the woman stood at this window, looking into the garden, and
saw a bed full of the finest rampion. It looked so fresh and green that
she longed to eat some of it. This desire grew every day, and as she
knew that she could not possibly have any of it, she pined away and
looked pale and miserable. Then her husband was alarmed, and said,
“What ails you, dear wife?”
“Ah,” she replied sadly, “if I cannot get some of that nice rampion to
eat out of the garden behind our house, I know that I shall die!”
Her husband, who loved her dearly, thought to himself, “Rather than let
my wife die, I must bring her some rampion, let the cost be what it
may.” So at dusk he climbed over the wall into the witch’s garden,
hastily picked a handful of rampion leaves, and took them back to his
wife.
She made them into a salad, which she ate with great relish. Indeed,
she liked it so very much that the next day she longed for it three
times as much as before. She could have no peace until her husband
descended into the garden and fetched her some more. So as soon as it
was dusk he let himself down again into the garden; but when he had
clambered down and was on the other side of the wall, he was terribly
frightened, for there, standing before him, was the old witch with a
frightful scowl on her face.
“How dare you climb into my garden like a thief and steal my rampion?”
she said, with angry looks. “You shall suffer for it.”
“Ah,” he replied, “be merciful to me this time, I pray you! I am only
here from necessity. My wife saw your rampion from her window, and had
such a desire for it that she would have died if she had not had some
of it to eat.”
Then the witch’s anger cooled a little, and she answered: “If that is
the case, I will let you take away as much rampion as you like, but on
one condition,—that you give me the child that your wife will shortly
bring into the world. All shall go well with it, and I will care for it
like a mother.”
In his anxiety to get away the man agreed to what she asked, and as
soon as the child was born the witch appeared, and having given it the
name of Rapunzel,—which is another name for rampion,—she took it away
with her.
Rapunzel was the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was
twelve years old the witch shut her up in a tower which lay in the
middle of a great forest. This tower had neither stairs nor door,—only
a little window high up at the very top of the wall. When the witch
wanted to enter the tower she stood beneath this window and called:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,
That I may climb without a stair.”
Rapunzel had wonderful hair, long, and as fine as spun gold. When she
heard the voice of the witch she unfastened her braided tresses, wound
them round one of the hooks of the little window, and let them hang
loose. They fell down about twenty yards, so that the witch could
easily climb up by them.
After things had gone on in this way for a year or two, it happened one
day that the King’s son was riding through that part of the forest and
passed by the tower. He heard some one singing so beautifully that he
stood spellbound, listening. It was Rapunzel, who in her solitude and
loneliness was trying to while away the long hours by singing. The
Prince longed to see the sweet singer and climb up to her, but he
searched in vain for a door into the tower. None was to be found. He
rode home, but the song had made such a deep impression on him that he
went every day to the wood and listened. One day, when he was standing
thus behind a tree, he saw the old witch approach and heard her call:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,
That I may climb without a stair.”
Then Rapunzel let down her braids, and the witch climbed up to her.
“So that is the ladder by which one mounts, is it?” said the Prince.
“Then I, too, will climb it and try my luck.”
The next night, when it began to grow dark, he went to the foot of the
tower and cried:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,
That I may climb without a stair.”
The hair fell down at once, and the Prince climbed up by it.
At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man came in, for she
had never seen one before; but the Prince spoke to her very kindly, and
told her that his heart had been so touched by her singing that he
could have no peace until he had seen her. So Rapunzel lost her fear,
and when he asked her to marry him she thought, “He is young and
handsome, and he will certainly love me far more than old Dame Gothel
does”; so she said “Yes,” and put her hand in his.
“I will gladly go with you,” she continued, “but I do not see how I am
to get down out of this tower. When you come, bring with you a skein of
silk each time, and I will weave a ladder out of them; when it is
finished, I will climb down by it, and you shall take me away on your
horse.”
They arranged that until the ladder was ready he should come and see
her every evening, bringing skeins of silk, for the witch came in the
daytime.
The witch knew nothing of all this till one day Rapunzel, not thinking
what she was saying, made this remark: “Tell me, Dame Gothel, how is it
that you are so much harder to pull up than the young Prince? He is
always with me in a moment.”
“Oh, you wicked, wicked child!” cried the witch. “What is this I hear?
I thought I had separated you from the whole world, and yet you have
deceived me.”
In her rage she seized Rapunzel’s beautiful hair, twisted it round and
round her left hand, snatched up a pair of scissors with her right, and
snip, snap, she cut it all off; and the beautiful tresses lay on the
ground. Then she was so hard-hearted that she took poor Rapunzel to a
lonely desert place and there left her to live in utter loneliness and
misery.
But on the evening of the day on which she had carried Rapunzel away
she fastened the braids which she had cut off to a hook by the window,
and when the Prince came and called:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,
That I may climb without a stair,”
she let the hair down. The Prince climbed up, but instead of his
beloved Rapunzel he found the old witch, who looked at him with angry,
wicked eyes, and cried mockingly, “Aha! you thought to fetch your
ladylove, but the pretty bird has flown, and the song is still; the cat
caught it, and will scratch out your eyes too. Rapunzel is lost to
you—you will never see her again.”
The Prince was beside himself with grief, and in his despair he jumped
right down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns
into which he fell pierced his eyes out. Then he wandered, blind, about
the forest, eating nothing but roots and berries, and constantly
lamenting and weeping for the loss of his lovely bride. For some years
he wandered about in great misery, and at last he came to the desert
place where Rapunzel was living. Suddenly he heard a voice which seemed
familiar to him. He walked eagerly toward it, and as he came near,
Rapunzel recognized him and fell on his neck and wept. Two of her tears
fell upon his eyes, and they became clear again, so that he could see
as well as ever.
Then he led her to his kingdom, where they were welcomed with great
joy, and they lived happily ever after.