Rapunzel
A girl in a doorless tower, a braid of golden hair, and a love that finds its way
Page 1
On the edge of a small village there stood a humble cottage, and its only window looked out over the high stone wall of a vast and beautiful garden that belonged to a powerful enchantress — a garden everyone in the village was far too afraid to enter. In the cottage lived a poor young husband and his wife, who had long wished for a child. When at last the wife was expecting one, she was seized by a powerful craving for the fresh green rapunzel leaves she could see growing in rows just over the wall, and she grew pale and weak with wanting them, until she told her husband she felt she could not live unless she had some.
Page 2
To ease his wife's suffering, the husband climbed over the wall one night and gathered a handful of the rapunzel greens. His wife was so grateful, and so much better for them, that soon she longed for more — and so he climbed the wall a second time. But this time, as he reached for the leaves, the tall enchantress was waiting for him in the moonlit garden. She was angry at the theft; yet when she heard why he had come, she offered a strange and terrible bargain. She would let him take all the rapunzel he wished, and forgive him entirely — but in return, when their child was born, he must give the baby to her to raise. Terrified and with no choice he could see, the frightened husband agreed.
Page 3
When the baby was born — a little girl with a wisp of golden hair — the enchantress came and took her away, and named her Rapunzel, after the greens in the garden. She loved the child in her own hard, possessive way, but she was determined that no one else should ever have her. So when Rapunzel grew into a young woman, famous for her beautiful voice and her astonishingly long golden hair, the enchantress shut her away at the top of a tall tower deep in the forest. The tower had neither stairs nor door — only one small window, high, high up at the very top — so that no one in the world could reach her.
Page 4
Each day the enchantress came to the foot of the tower and called up to the little window: 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!' And Rapunzel would unwind her immense golden braid and let it tumble all the way down the tower wall, so that the enchantress could climb up by it. In this way Rapunzel lived, year after year, high above the world, with only the enchantress for company and the birds at her window for friends. She kept the little round room bright and sang to pass the long days — but more and more she gazed out of her one small window at the wide green forest and the sky, and wondered what the great world beyond her tower might be like.
Page 5
One day a young prince came riding through the deep forest and heard a voice singing more sweetly than any he had ever known. He followed the sound until he came to the foot of the tall tower — but search as he might, he could find no door and no stair, only the smooth high wall and that one small window far above. Puzzled and enchanted, he hid among the trees to watch. Before long he saw the enchantress arrive and heard her call up, 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,' and watched in amazement as the long golden braid came tumbling down and she climbed up by it. Now the prince knew the tower's secret, and he waited quietly until the enchantress had gone away again.
Page 6
When all was quiet, the prince stepped up to the foot of the tower and called, just as the enchantress had: 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.' Down came the long golden braid, and the prince climbed up it to the little window. Rapunzel was startled at first — for she had never in her life seen a young man, nor anyone but the enchantress — but the prince spoke so gently, and told her how her singing had drawn him through the whole forest, that her fear soon melted into delight. Day after day, while the enchantress was away, the prince came to visit, and the two of them talked and laughed at the high window for hours, and a true and tender love grew between them.
Page 7
But one day Rapunzel, without thinking, let slip a question that gave the secret away — asking the enchantress why she was so much heavier to pull up than the kind young prince who came to visit. The enchantress was furious to discover that someone had found the tower after all. In her cold anger, she decided that Rapunzel must be sent far away where the prince could never find her. That very day she took Rapunzel from the tower and led her off to a lonely, distant place at the edge of the wild country, and left her there — and then returned to the tower alone, to wait by the window for the prince, and to put an end to his visits for good.
Page 8
And so Rapunzel found herself alone in a wide and lonely country of heath and distant hills, far from her tower and farther still from the prince. The days were hard, but she was braver and more resourceful than the enchantress had ever guessed. She found shelter, and water, and berries, and she kept herself alive — and through all the long, lonely months she never once gave up hope that somehow, someday, she and the prince would find each other again. And far away, the prince, who had climbed the tower only to find the enchantress waiting and his Rapunzel gone, had set off wandering the wide world in search of her, asking after her in every land he passed through.
Page 9
For a long time the prince wandered, footsore and weary, his heart aching, following every rumour of a golden-haired girl with a beautiful voice. Then one evening, crossing a wide and lonely country, he heard — far off, faint, and unmistakable — the very song that had first drawn him to the tower. He followed it over the heath with the last of his strength, and there, at last, he found his Rapunzel. The two of them ran to each other and embraced, weeping for joy after so long apart, scarcely able to believe their long search was over. And from that moment their troubles were behind them, for nothing in the world could part them again.
Page 10
Hand in hand, the prince and Rapunzel journeyed back to his own kingdom, where he had long been given up for lost. The whole land poured out to welcome the prince home at last, and to meet the gentle, golden-haired young woman he had searched the world to find. They were married in the greatest celebration the kingdom had known, and Rapunzel — who had spent so much of her life shut away from the world in a single small room — now lived free and happy and surrounded by friends, with the wide sky above her and no walls or towers anywhere in sight. And so, after all their long trials, the two of them lived joyfully together for the rest of their days.
About this story
- Audience: kids (ages 6–12)
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