Grimm Rewritten: Retellings of the Original Grimm Stories

Rapunzel

   Once upon a time there lived a man and a woman who long wished to have a child. The woman hoped that God would grant her desire.
   In the back of their house was a little window through which a beautiful, green garden could be seen, which contained flowers and herbs of many kinds. However, it was surrounded by a tall, stone wall. No one ever dared to climb over this wall for inside dwelled an enchantress who bared great power and was feared by many.
   One day the woman stood beside the window, looking into the garden, where she saw a bed that contained the most beautiful rampion called rapunzel.
   The plant looked so green and fresh that the woman longed for and desired to taste it. Every day she wanted it more and more. Knowing that she had no way of getting it, she grew pale and miserable.
   Her husband was alarmed and asked, "What brings you this ailment, my dear?"
"I will surely die if I cannot eat the rampion from that garden over the wall," she replied.
   When the husband heard this news, he decided he would climb over the wall to get her some rampion, no matter the cost, for love conquered all. 
   At twilight, he clambered down over the wall and into the garden of the enchantress, pulled a handful of rampion from the garden, and returned home with it and gave it to his wife.
   Immediately she made a salad from it and ate it greedily. The taste of it was so powerful and wonderful that the next day she longed for three times as much as the day before.
   So once again, that evening, the husband climbed over the wall and into the beautiful garden, but once he reached the ground he became immediately terrified, for in front of him stood the enchantress.
"How can you dare," she said, "trespass into my garden and steal my rampion like a thief? You will surely suffer for it."
"Please," the husband begged. "Have mercy on me. My wife needs it."

   The anger of the enchantress softened and she said, "If your case be true, take all the rampions you want, but only on one condition. You must hand over to me the child your wife will birth. It shall be treated well and I will care for it like a mother."

   Panicked, the man consented to everything, and when the woman was brought to bed, the enchantress appeared at once, took the child, and named her Rapunzel.

   Rapunzel grew up to be the most beautiful girl under the sun. When she turned twelve, the enchantress locked her up in a tower that lay in the woods. The tower had neither stairs nor a door, but only a quaint, little window.
  
   When the enchantress wanted up she cried, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair."

   Rapunzel's hair was quite long. It was fine and the color looked like pure gold. When she heard the enchantress cry out, she let her hair down from her braid, wound it around one of the hooks above the window, and as her hair fell all the way to the ground, the enchantress would climb up.

   It came to pass after a year or two that the king's son rode through the forest, passing by the tower. He heard a song so beautiful and charming coming from the tower that he stood and listened to it.

   He wanted to climb up the tower to see the face of this beautiful voice, but could not find a door or a staircase, so he rode home, but the song and the voice had touched him so deeply that every day he came back to the tower and listened once again.

   One day he stood behind a tree and saw the enchantress call to Rapunzel. He saw the hair fly down and watched as the enchantress climbed up.

   The next day when it began to grow dark, the prince went up to the tower and shouted, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!" Immediatly the hair fell down and the prince began to climb up.
 
   At first, Rapunzel was terribly frightened, but the prince came to her as a friend and told her that his heart had been touched by her song and that he couldn't help but climb up to see who sang. She became quite pleased with him and he asked her to take him as her husband. Surely he was so pure and kind-hearted that he would love her more than the enchantress would, so she said yes.

"I wish you to take me away with you, but I am still yet unsure of how to get down from this tower. Every day you visit me, bring with you a skein of silk and I shall begin to weave a ladder. I will come down and we will ride off on your horse," she told him. He willingly agreed and rode off.

   The enchantress had no idea of this plan until Rapunzel spoke up and said, "Tell me, Madam Gothel, why is it that you are heavier to pull up than the king's son?"

"You wicked child," Gothel replied. "What is this I hear you say? I thought you had separated yourself from the rest of the world, but I find out you have deceived me!"

   In her anger, she snatched Rapunzel's hairs tightly with her left hand, and with her right, cut her hair off. The long strands of hair fell to the floor. The enchantress was so pitiless that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she would live in great misery.

   However, on the same day, Gothel took Rapunzel's fallen locks and tied them to the hooks of the window, and when the king's son came calling for Rapunzel to let down her hair, she let the hair down.

   The prince ascended, but to his despair, instead of finding his wife, he stood face to face with the enchantress.

"Ha!" She mocked him. "You would come to fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in her nest. Rapunzel is lost to you and you shall never again see her."

   The prince's heart burned out in misery. He quickly jumped out the window in attempt to escape. He escaped with his life, but the thorns in which he had fallen onto had pierced his eyes. From then on, he wandered around the forest blindly, eating nothing but roots and berries, and did nothing but weep over the loss of his wife.

   He roamed about in misery for years after years until he finally came to the dessert where Rapunzel lived poorly with her two twins she had given birth to. He heard a familiar voice and came closer to it, and when Rapunzel saw him, she fell into his arms and wept. Two of her tears wetted his eyes, and ,alas, his sight returned to him. He led her and their children to his kingdom.

Eventually, the children died of a horrible sickness, and the next to pass was the prince, who grew too old to continue living. Rapunzel was left alone in the kingdom for years.

   Her hair had grown long again, but now it was thin, white, and tangled. Her nails were long and crooked, as were the nails on her feet.

   One day she heard the voice of a young traveler who had come to visit the kingdom, thinking it was abandoned. The traveler reminded her of her dead husband. Rapunzel had grown tired of life, and because of the loss of her family, her heart had broken and she had become a very evil person.

   Her voice was still as beautiful as ever, and she used that to her advantage. She began to sing her song she once sang to the young man that climbed up her hair that one day at the tower. The young traveler grew closer until he was in her room. He saw nothing, for Rapunzel hid in the shadows in the corner of the room.

   He kept walking further in, and Rapunzel snuck behind him, closed the door and came up to the back of him. She used her hair to choke him until his lungs were out of air. She smiled and looked up at the sky before hanging herself with her own hair.