Rapunzel

Rapunzel’s story tells about The consequences of stealing and the value of patience and determination.

Rapunzel

there are 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, but she saw a bed that was

planted with the most beautiful Rambin, 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 fast. “What ails you, dear wife?”

“ah,” she replied, “if I can’t eat some of the rampions which are in the garden behind

our house, I shall die”,

the man who loved her thought sooner than let your wife die to 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; when 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 an angry look.

“Descend into my garden and steal my rampion like a thief; you shall suffer for it.”

“ha,” and said, “let mercy take the place of justice; I only made up my mind to do it

for 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 and 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

12 years old The Enchantress shot her into a tower that lay in a forest had 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

and wound them around 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 as the king’s son rode through the forest

and passed by the tower; then, he heard a song that was so charming that he stood

still and listened; this was Rapunzel, who, in her solitude, passed her time by 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 latter by which one mount, “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 her 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, 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 milk 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 and 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 had 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. “Huh,” 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 in pain

and in his despair, he leaped 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 ain’t nothing but roots and berries and did not but lament and weep

over the loss of his dearest wife, Thus he roamed about in misery for some years

when at length came to the desert where Rapunzel was with the twins to which she had

given birth to a boy and a girl who 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 a long time afterward, happy

and contented.

The End