Selected Tales of the Brothers Grimm(56)

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,

Let down your hair.”

Rapunzel had lovely long hair, fine as golden threads. As soon as she heard the sorceress’s voice, she undid her braids and wound them around a window knob. The hair fell down a good twenty arms’ lengths, and the sorceress shimmied up.

A few years later, it so happened that a prince rode through the forest and passed in front of the tower. He heard someone singing, and the voice sounded so sweet that he reigned in his horse and listened. It was Rapunzel, who in her solitude bided her time by letting her sweet voice ring out. The prince wanted to climb up to her and searched for a door, but there was none to be found. He rode home, but the song had so touched his heart that he returned to the forest every day to listen. Once, as he was standing behind a tree, he saw a sorceress walk up to the tower and heard her call out:

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,

Let down your hair.”

Whereupon Rapunzel unraveled and lowered her braids, and the sorceress shimmied up to her.

“If that’s the way up,” he said to himself, “then I’ll try my luck too.” And the next day when it started to grow dark, he went up to the tower and called out:

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,

Let down your hair.”

No sooner had the braids fallen than the prince clambered up.

At first, upon seeing a man enter the window, since she had never set eyes on one before, she fell back in an awful fright, but the prince spoke to her in such a gentle way, and told her that his heart had been so touched by her song that he could not rest and felt driven to see her. Whereupon Rapunzel stopped being afraid, and when he asked her if she would take him as her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought to herself, He’ll love me more than that old Frau Gothel, and said yes, and lay her hand in his. She said, “I’ll gladly go with you, but I don’t know how to get down. So each time you come, bring me a silk halter. I’ll weave myself a ladder, and when it’s done I’ll climb down and you can take me away on your horse.”

So they agreed that every evening he would come to her, as the old crone came by day. And the sorceress noticed nothing until Rapunzel once let slip: “Pray tell, Frau Gothel, how is it that you’re much heavier to hoist up than the young prince, who gets up so swiftly.”

“Oh you godless child,” cried the sorceress, “what vile things must my ears endure! I thought to have shielded you from all worldly temptations, and look how you betrayed me!” In her fury she grabbed Rapunzel by her lovely hair, struck her with her left hand, and with her right reached for a pair of scissors and snip-snap, the braids were severed and lay there in the dust. And she was so merciless that she took Rapunzel to a remote hideaway where the poor girl had to live in misery and want.

But on the evening of the very same day on which she banished Rapunzel, she tied her severed braids tightly to the window knob, and when the prince came by and called:

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,

Let down your hair,"

she let the hair down. Then when the prince climbed up, he did not find his beloved Rapunzel but the sorceress, who gave him a nasty look.

“So,” she sneered, “you came to fetch your ladylove, but the pretty little bird has stopped singing – the cat came to get her and will also claw out your eyes. Rapunzel is lost to you, you’ll never see her again.”

The prince was so heartbroken, in his despair he leaped out of the tower, and though he managed to come away with his life, the thorns in which he fell poked out his eyes. Then he wandered blind through the woods, ate nothing but roots and berries, and did nothing but weep and whine at the loss of his beloved. In this way, he wandered for a year and finally arrived at the remote hideaway where Rapunzel lived in misery with the twins she bore him, a boy and a girl. He heard a voice singing, and it sounded so familiar that he approached. And as he drew near, Rapunzel recognized him and fell into his arms and wept. Two of her tears wet his eyes, and wonder of wonders, he could see again as before. He led her and the children back to his kingdom, where they were warmly received, and they lived for many years together in joy and contentment.





THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM





There once was a miller who had a lovely daughter, and when she grew up he wanted to make sure that she was provided for and well-married. He thought, If a proper suitor comes and asks for her hand in marriage, I will give her to him. Not long after that there came a suitor who seemed to be very rich, and since the miller found nothing wrong with him, he promised to give him his daughter in marriage. But the girl did not really like him, the way a bride ought to like a bridegroom, and did not rightly trust him – whenever she looked at him or thought of him, she felt a sense of dread in her heart.