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 that 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; 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 that grows in the garden at the back of our house." The man, who
loved her very much, thought to himself,
"Rather than lose my wife I will get some rampion, cost what it will."
[Illustration: RAPUNZEL
"O RAPUNZEL, RAPUNZEL!
LET DOWN THINE HAIR."]
So in the twilight he climbed over the wall into the witch's garden,
plucked hastily a handful of rampion 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
the 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 say 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. It shall go well with the child, and I will care for it like a
mother."
In his distress of mind the man promised everything; and when the time
came when the child was born the witch appeared, and, giving the child
the name of Rapunzel (which is the same as rampion), she took it away
with her.
Rapunzel was the most beautiful child in the world. When she was twelve
years old the witch shut her up in a tower in the midst of a wood, and
it had neither steps nor door, only a small window above. When the witch
wished to be let in, she would stand below and would 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 the plaits of her hair, and let it down twenty ells below, and
the witch would climb up by it.
After they had lived thus 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 in her loneliness trying to pass away the time with sweet
songs. 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
to it. Once, as he was standing there under a tree, he saw the witch
come up, and listened while she called out,
"O Rapunzel, Rapunzel! let down your hair."
Then he saw how Rapunzel let down her long tresses, and how the witch
climbed up by it 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,
"O Rapunzel, Rapunzel! let down your hair."
And she let down her hair, and the King's son climbed up by it.
Rapunzel was greatly terrified when she saw that a man had come in to
her, for she had never seen one before; but the King's son began
speaking so kindly to her, and told how her singing had entered into his
heart, so that he could have no peace until he had seen her herself.
Then Rapunzel forgot her terror, and when he asked her to take him for
her husband, and she saw that he was young and beautiful, she thought to
herself,
"I certainly like him much better than old mother Gothel," and she put
her hand into his hand, saying,
"I would willingly go with thee, but I do not know how I shall get out.
When thou comest, bring each time a silken rope, and I will make a
ladder, and when it is quite ready I will get down by it out of the
tower, and thou shalt take me away on thy horse." They agreed that he
should come to her every evening, as the old woman came in the day-time.
So the witch knew nothing of all this until once Rapunzel said to her
unwittingly,
"Mother Gothel, how is it that you climb up here so slowly, and the
King's son is with me in a moment?"
"O wicked child," cried the witch, "what is this I hear! I thought I had
hidden thee from all the world, and thou hast 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 she
was so hard-hearted that she took Rapunzel and put her in a waste and
desert place, where she lived in great woe and misery.
The same day on which she took Rapunzel away she went back to the tower
in the evening 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, mocking him, "you came for your darling, but the sweet
bird sits no longer in the nest, and sings no more; the cat has got her,
and will scratch out your eyes as well! Rapunzel is lost to you; you
will see her no more."
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 wife.
So he wandered several years in misery until at last he came to the
desert place where Rapunzel lived with her twin-children that she had
borne, a boy and a girl. At first he heard a voice that he thought he
knew, and when he reached the place from which it seemed to come
Rapunzel knew him, and fell on his neck and wept. And when her tears
touched his eyes they became clear again, and he could see with them as
well as ever.
Then he took her to his kingdom, where he was received with great joy,
and there they lived long and happily.