1812
GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES
RAPUNZEL
by Jacob Ludwig Grimm and Wilhelm Carl Grimm
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
RAPUNZEL
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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; 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."
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, "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 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 you, but I do not know how I shall get out. When you
come, 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 you
shall take me away on your 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 you from all 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
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.
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THE END
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