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RAPUNZEL
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, 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 to me.'
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 to me.'
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 to me.'
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 to me.'
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.
THE END
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