Once upon a time there were a man and a woman who had long wished for a child. Finally one day the woman announced to her husband that she was pregnant. These people’s house had a beautiful view into a splendid garden that was filled with the most beautiful flowers and herbs. The garden was surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared enter, because it belonged to a sorceress who possessed great power and was feared by everyone.
One day the woman was standing at this window, and she saw a bed planted with the most beautiful rapunzel. It looked so fresh and green that she longed for some. It was her greatest desire to eat some of the rapunzel. This desire increased day after day, and not knowing how to get any, she became miserably ill.
Her husband, noticing his wife so sick, decided to get into the garden in order to get her some of the rapunzel. Once she had received them, she immediately made a salad from it which she devoured eagerly. It tasted so very good to her that by the next day her desire for more had grown threefold.
Therefore the man climbed into the garden once again, as soon as he had climbed over the wall he saw the sorceress standing there before him, angrier than ever.
“How can you dare to climb into my garden and like a thief to steal my Rapunzel?” She asked
“I am sorry, lady” stuttered the man confused.
“These are for my wife; she saw your Rapunzel from our window, and such a longing came over her, that she would die, if she did not get some to eat.”
“Ok” said the sorceress calm “If things are as you say, I will allow you to take as much Rapunzel as you want. But remember: You must give me the child that your wife will bring to the world!”
In his fear the man agreed to everything.
When the woman gave birth, the sorceress appeared, named the little girl Rapunzel, and took her away. Rapunzel became the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was twelve years old, the crone locked her in a tower that stood in a forest and that had neither a door nor a stairway, but only a tiny little window at the very top.
When the sorceress wanted to enter, she stood below and called out Rapunzel. Rapunzel would let her hair fall to the ground, and the sorceress climbed up it.
A few years later it happened that a prince was riding through the forest and he heard a song so beautiful that he stopped to listen.
He looked up and he noticed a girl from the window of the tower. He was so enchanted that he looked for a door in the tower, but none was to be found. Every day he would go back into the forest to hear the sweet voice of the girl; one time, as he was standing behind a tree, he saw the sorceress approach, and heard her say:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair.”
So the prince waited that the sorceress went away and then he shouted that words too. Then Rapunzel let down her long braid of hair, and the handsome prince climbed up them to her. At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened because she had never seen a man before. However, the prince began talking to her in a very friendly and funny manner, so they became friends very quickly. In the evening, at sunset, the prince would arrive and they spent many hours together; so they fell in love.
Every time the prince would bring a strand of silk, from which she would weave a ladder to run away with him.
But one bad day, Rapunzel revealed her secret, she said to the sorceress while pulling her up: “You are quite heavy, my prince is much lighter than you!”
In hearing those words, in her anger she grabbed Rapunzel’s beautiful hair, wrapped it a few times around her left hand, grasped a pair of scissors with her right hand, and snip snap, cut it off. And then she took Rapunzel into a wilderness in the forest where she suffered greatly. Then the sorceress came back to the tower and she waited for the prince to come. When he arrived he called out the girl, the sorceress let down the hair and the prince climbed up. As soon as she saw him, she cried scornfully: “You have come for your Mistress Darling? She is not here anymore, silly boy!”
The prince was overcome with grief, and in his despair he threw himself from the tower. Fortunately he escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell poked out his eyes. For a long time, blind, he wandered about in the forest, doing nothing but weeping and wailing over the loss of his beloved. But one day he happened in the wilderness where Rapunzel lived miserably with the twins that she had given birth to and he heard her singing.
Rapunzel recognized him, and crying, threw her arms around his neck. Two of her tears fell into his eyes, and they became clear once again, and he could see as well as before. Since that day the two lovers stayed always together and for a long time they lived happily with their two children who were born from to their love.