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.
