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, and had the greatest desire to eat some. This desire
increased every day, and as she knew that she could not get any of 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!"
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!"
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!"
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!"
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.
