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T HERE was once a man and his wife who had long wished in vain for a child, when at last they had reason to hope that Heaven would grant their wish. There was a little window at the back of their house, which overlooked a beautiful garden, full of lovely flowers and shrubs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and nobody dared to enter it, because it belonged to a powerful witch, who was feared by everyone.
One day the woman, standing at this window and looking into the garden, saw a bed planted with beautiful corn salad. It looked so fresh and green that it made her long to eat some of it. This longing increased every day, and as she knew it could never be satisfied, she began to look pale and miserable, and to pine away. Then her husband became alarmed, and said: "What ails you, my dear wife?"
"Alas!" she answered, "if I cannot get any of the corn salad from the garden behind our house to eat, I shall die."
Her husband, who loved her, thought: "Before you let your wife die, you must fetch her some of that corn salad, cost what it may." So in the twilight he climbed over the wall into the Witch's garden, hastily picked a handful of corn salad, and took it back to his wife. She immediately dressed it, and ate it up very eagerly. It was so very, very nice that the next day her longing for it increased threefold. She could have no peace unless her husband fetched her some more. So in the twilight he set out again; but when he got over the wall he was terrified to see the Witch before him.
"How dare you come into my garden like a thief, and steal my corn salad?" she said, with angry looks. "It shall disagree with you."
"Alas!" he answered, "be merciful to me; I am only here from necessity. My wife sees your corn salad from the window, and she has such a longing for it that she would die if she could not get some of it."
The anger of the Witch abated, and she said to him: "If it is as you say, I will allow you to take away with you as much corn salad as you like, but on one condition. You must give me the child which your wife is about to bring into the world. I will care for it like a mother, and all will be well with it." In his fear the man consented to everything, and when the baby was born the Witch appeared, gave it the name of Rapunzel (corn salad), and took it away with her.
Rapunzel was the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was twelve years old, the Witch shut her up in a tower which stood in a wood. It had neither staircase nor doors, and only a little window quite high up in the wall. When the Witch wanted to enter the tower, she stood at the foot of it and cried:
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!"
Rapunzel had splendid long hair, as fine as spun gold. As soon as she heard the voice of the Witch she unfastened her plaits and twisted them around a hook by the window. They fell twenty ells downward, and the Witch climbed up by them.
It happened a couple of years later that the King's son rode through the forest and came close to the tower. From thence he heard a song so lovely that he stopped to listen. It was Rapunzel; who in her loneliness made her sweet voice resound to pass away the time. The King's son wanted to join her, and he sought for the door of the tower, but there was none to find.
He rode home, but the song had touched his heart so deeply that he went into the forest every day to listen to it. Once, when he was hidden behind a tree, he saw a witch come to the tower and call out:
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!"
Then Rapunzel lowered her plaits of hair and the Witch climbed up to her.
"If that is the ladder by which one ascends, I will try my luck myself." And the next day, when it began to grow dark, he went to the tower and cried:
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!"
The hair fell down at once, and the King's son climbed up by it.
At first Rapunzel was terrified, for she had never set eyes on a man before, but the King's son talked to her in a friendly way, and told her that his heart had been so deeply touched by her song that he had no peace, and he was obliged to see her. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked if she would have him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought, "He will love me better than old Mother Gothel." So she said, "Yes," and laid her hand in his. She said: "I will gladly go with you, but I do not know how I am to get down from this tower. When you come, will you bring a skein of silk with you every time? I will twist it into a ladder, and when it is long enough I will descend by it, and you can take me away with you on your horse."
She arranged with him that he should come and see her every evening, for the old Witch came in the daytime.
The Witch discovered nothing, till suddenly Rapunzel said to her: "Tell me, Mother Gothel, how can it be that you are so much heavier to draw up than the young Prince who will be here in a moment?"
"Oh, you wicked child, what do you say? I thought I had separated you from all the world, and yet you have deceived me." In her rage she seized Rapunzel's beautiful hair, twisted it twice around her left hand, snatched up a pair of shears and cut off the plaits, which fell to the ground. She was so merciless that she took poor Rapunzel away into a wilderness, where she forced her to live in the greatest grief and misery.
In the evening of the day on which she had banished Rapunzel, the Witch fastened the plaits, which she had cut off, to the hook by the window, and when the Prince came and called, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!" she lowered the hair. The Prince climbed up, but there he found, not his beloved Rapunzel, but the Witch, who looked at him with angry and wicked eyes.
"Ah!" she cried mockingly, "you have come to fetch your ladylove, but the pretty bird is no longer in her nest; and she can sing no more, for the cat has seized her, and it will scratch your own eyes out too. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her again."
The Prince was beside himself with grief, and in his despair he sprang out of the window. He was not killed, but his eyes were scratched out by the thorns among which he fell. He wandered about blind in the wood, and had nothing but roots and berries to eat. He did nothing but weep and lament over the loss of his beloved wife Rapunzel. In this way he wandered about for some years, till at last he reached the wilderness where Rapunzel had been living in great poverty with the twins (a boy and a girl) who had been born to her.
He heard a voice which seemed very familiar to him, and he went toward it. The voice was Rapunzel's, and she knew him at once, and fell weeping upon his neck. Two of her tears fell upon his eyes, and they immediately grew quite clear, and he could see as well as ever.
He took her to his kingdom, where he was received with joy, and they lived long and happily together.