Rapunzel

Impossibly long hair hangs straight down from the top of a tall stone tower. It pours down like a stream of shining gold and almost touches the ground below. The tower stands silent in the middle of a deep forest. It has no door and no stairs, and that hair is the only way between the top of the tower and the earth. This is the story of whose hair it is, and why its owner is shut away so high. It begins long before.

Once upon a time, a husband and wife who had long wished for a child lived in a small house right beside a high wall. The wall surrounded a glorious garden. That garden belonged to a witch whose magic was so strong that everyone was wary of her. At the back of the house, a small window looked straight into the garden. All kinds of fragrant flowers and strange plants grew there side by side, and in the middle of them was a bed of fresh green leaves.

The wife was expecting a baby at the time. One day she stood at the window, looked across at that bed of greens, and suddenly craved it more than she could bear. She stopped eating and grew thinner day by day, until her husband was terribly afraid for her. One night he climbed over the high wall, snatched a handful of the greens, and carried them home to his wife. She ate them hungrily, and the next day she craved them three times as much as before. So the husband risked climbing the wall once more. This time the witch caught him right in the middle of her garden and angrily accused him of stealing. He pleaded with her, and told her how his wife craved the greens so badly that she lay sick in bed. The witch softened her voice. He could pick as many greens as he liked, she said, but in return, the child about to be born must be handed over to her to raise. Frightened as he was, the husband nodded and agreed.

When the baby was born, the witch came at once and carried her away. She named the girl Rapunzel, after the very greens that had cost her parents so dearly. Two scholar brothers named Grimm, gathering old tales all over Germany, wrote down that same name. Thanks to them, people still know today why the girl in the tower carries the name of a leafy vegetable.

Rapunzel grew up wonderfully beautiful, and her golden hair grew longer with every passing year. When she was 12 years old, the witch took her deep into a forest. There she shut the girl away at the top of a stone tower that had no door and no stairs, only one small window high up. Whenever the witch wanted to visit, she stood at the foot of the tower and called out, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair." Rapunzel would wind her long hair around a hook beside the window and let it fall to the ground, and the witch climbed up by that very hair. Year after year it went on like this, and the hair was the only road up and down the tower. Rapunzel had only the treetops, the sky and the birdsong for company. Through the long days alone, she sat by the little window and sang to comfort herself.

Then one day, a prince rode his horse through the forest. He heard singing drift down from the top of the tower and stopped to listen, his heart strangely stirred. He went all around the tower looking for a door and found none, so he went home. Yet every day he came back to hear the singing. One time he hid in the bushes and saw with his own eyes how the witch came, called for Rapunzel to let down her hair, and climbed up by it. He memorized every word she called.

The next evening, the prince stood at the foot of the tower and called out the very words the witch always used. The golden hair tumbled down, and he took hold of it and climbed up to the window. Rapunzel had never seen a man before, and she was so frightened that she nearly cried out. But the prince gently calmed her. He told her that her singing had touched his heart for many days, and then he asked her to marry him. Rapunzel thought that this man would surely love her more than the witch who kept her shut away up there. So she put her hand in his and said yes. Then she worked out a plan with him to escape the tower. Each time he came to visit, he would bring a skein of silk, and she would slowly weave it into a ladder. When it was long enough, she would climb down it and leave the forest with him forever.

But the secret came out through one careless remark. One day Rapunzel blurted out a question to the witch. She asked why pulling the witch up was always so much harder than pulling up the young prince, who reached the top in a moment. The witch froze. She knew at once that something was wrong.

The witch flew into a rage. She seized Rapunzel's long hair and cut it off. Lock after lock of golden hair fell onto the cold floor of the tower. Then the witch banished Rapunzel to a desolate, faraway wilderness and made her live there alone in hardship. That very evening, the witch tied the cut hair tightly to the hook beside the window and waited for the prince to call. When the prince climbed up, Rapunzel was nowhere to be seen. He found only the witch, standing there waiting for him. Coldly, she told him that the girl he loved was lost, and that he would never see her again.

The prince was overcome with grief. Lost in his panic and pain, he fell from the top of the tower into the forest below. He survived the fall. But he landed in a thick thornbush, and the thorns caught his eyes. From that moment on, the prince could no longer see. He wandered blind from one forest to the next and lived on roots and wild fruit. Every day he mourned for his dearest wife. In his ears, he still heard the old song drifting down from the tower.

Many years passed like this, until one day his wandering feet led him to the very wilderness where Rapunzel was living. He heard a familiar voice singing nearby, and he groped his way toward it. Rapunzel knew him at once. She ran to him, threw her arms around him, and wept. Two of her tears fell right into his eyes. Then, wonderfully, the prince's eyes grew bright again, and he could see everything as clearly as before.

The prince took Rapunzel back to his kingdom. The whole court welcomed the two of them with great joy, and cheers rang through the halls of the palace. From then on, they lived together for a long, long time in peace and warmth, and Rapunzel never again had to sing alone.

As for the stone tower in the deep forest, it now stands silent and alone. The window high up is empty, and no hair falls from it anymore. Far away, out in the wide-open world, Rapunzel's hair is quietly growing longer every day, as if it too has come back to life, as free as she is.