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." 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.
She said: "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.
* * * END * * *
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