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.
