Array The Brothers Grimm - Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm - A New English Version

The man loved his wife dearly, and he thought, ‘Rather than let her die, I must get her some of that rapunzel. I don’t care what it costs.’

So as night was falling he climbed over the high wall and got into the witch’s garden, where he pulled up a handful of rapunzel. He scrambled back hastily and took it to his wife, who made it into a salad at once, and ate it hungrily.

It tasted good. In fact it tasted so good that her desire for it grew stronger and stronger, and she begged her husband to go and get some more. So once again, just as it was getting dark, he set off and climbed the wall. But when he set foot on the ground and turned to go to the bed of rapunzel, he had a shock, for there was the witch standing in front of him.

‘So you’re the wretch who’s been stealing my rapunzel!’ she said, glaring at him. ‘You’ll pay for this, let me tell you.’

‘That’s fair,’ said the man. ‘I can’t argue with that, but let me plead for mercy. I had to do this. My wife saw your rapunzel from our window up there, and she felt a craving — you know how it is; it was so strong she thought she might die if she couldn’t have some. So I had no choice.’

The witch understood the reason. The anger went out of her expression, and she nodded.

‘I see,’ she said. ‘Well, if that’s the case, you can have as much rapunzel as you want. But there’s a condition: the child your wife is bearing shall belong to me. It will be perfectly safe; I shall look after it like a mother.’

In his fear the man agreed to this, and hurried back home with the rapunzel. And when in due course the wife gave birth, the witch appeared by her bed and took up the little girl in her arms.

‘I name this child Rapunzel,’ she said, and vanished with her.

Rapunzel grew up to become the most beautiful child the sun had ever shone on. When she was twelve years old, the witch took her into the depths of the forest and shut her in a tower that had no door, no stairs and no windows except one very small one in a room right at the top. When the witch wanted to go in she would call:

Rapunzel had beautiful hair, as fine as spun gold, and of the same lustrous colour. When she heard the witch calling, she untied her hair and fastened it around the window hook before letting down its full length all the way to the ground, twenty yards down, whereupon the witch climbed up it to her little room.

After she had been in the tower for some years, it happened that the king’s son was riding through the forest. As he came near the tower he heard a song so lovely that he had to stop and listen to it. Of course it was the lonely Rapunzel, singing to pass the time, and she had a sweet voice, too.

The prince wanted to go up to her, but there was no door to be found. He was baffled, and he rode home determined to come again and see if there was another way to get up the tower.

Next day he came back, but with no more success. Such a beautiful song, and no singer to be seen! But while he was pondering, he heard someone coming and hid behind a tree. It was the witch. When she was at the base of the tower, the prince heard her call out:

To his astonishment, down from the window tumbled a length of golden hair. The witch seized hold and climbed all the way up, and clambered in through the window.

‘Well,’ thought the prince, ‘if that’s the way up, I’ll try my luck with it.’

So the following day, as darkness was falling, he went to the tower and called out:

Down came the hair, and the prince took its fragrant thickness into his hands and climbed up and jumped in through the window.

At first Rapunzel was terrified. She had never seen a man before. He was nothing like the witch, so he was strange and unfamiliar to her, but he was so handsome that she was confused and didn’t know what to say. However, a prince is never lost for words, and he begged her not to be frightened. He explained how he’d heard her lovely voice singing from the tower, and how he couldn’t rest until he found the singer; and how, now that he’d seen her, he found her face even more beautiful than her voice.

Rapunzel was charmed by this, and soon lost her fear. Instead she felt delight in the young prince’s company, and eagerly agreed to let him visit her again. Before many days had gone by their friendship had developed into love, and when the prince asked her to marry him, Rapunzel consented at once.

As for the witch, she suspected nothing at first. But one day Rapunzel said to her, ‘You know, it’s funny, but my clothes no longer fit me. Every dress I have is too tight.’

The witch knew at once what that meant.

‘You wicked girl!’ she said. ‘You’ve deceived me! All this time you’ve been entertaining a lover, and now we see the consequences! Well, I shall put an end to that.’

She took Rapunzel’s beautiful hair in her left hand and snatched up some scissors with her right, and snip-snap! and down fell the lustrous strands up which the prince had climbed.

The witch then transported Rapunzel by magic to a wild place far away. There the poor young woman suffered greatly and, after a few months, gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. They lived like tramps: they had no money, no home, and only what they could beg from passers-by who heard Rapunzel sing. They were often hungry: in the winter they nearly perished of the cold, and in the summer they were scorched by the burning sun.

But back to the tower.

On the evening of the day when Rapunzel’s hair was cut off, the prince came to the tower as usual and called:

The witch was lying in wait. She had tied Rapunzel’s hair to the window hook, and when she heard him call, she threw it down as the girl had done. The prince climbed up, but instead of his beloved Rapunzel, at the window he found an ugly old woman, demented with anger, whose eyes flashed with fury as she railed at him:

‘You’re her fancy-boy, are you? You worm your way into the tower, you worm your way into her affections, you worm your way into her bed, you rogue, you leech, you lounge-lizard, you high-born mongrel! Well, the bird’s not in her nest any more! The cat got her. What d’you think of that, eh? And the cat’ll scratch your pretty eyes out too before she’s finished. Rapunzel’s gone, you understand? You’ll never see her again!’

And the witch forced the prince backwards and backwards until he fell out of the window. A thorn bush broke his fall, but at the terrible cost of piercing his eyes. Blinded in body and broken in spirit, the prince wandered away.

He lived as a beggar for some time, not knowing which country he was in. But one day he heard a familiar voice, a voice that he loved, and stumbled towards it. And as he did so he heard two more voices joining in, the voices of children — and suddenly they stopped singing, for their mother Rapunzel had recognized the prince and was running towards him.

They embraced, both of them crying with joy; and then two of Rapunzel’s tears fell into the prince’s eyes, and his vision became clear once more. He saw his dear Rapunzel, and he saw his two children for the first time.

So, reunited, they travelled back to the prince’s kingdom, where they were welcomed; and there they lived for the rest of their long and happy lives.

Tale type:ATU 310, ‘The Maiden in the Tower’

Source:a story told to the Grimm brothers by Friedrich Schultz, based on Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force’s ‘Persinette’ from Les Contes des contes ( Tales of Tales ; 1698)