When the Witch wished to enter she stood beneath, and called out—for Rapunzel had long and beautiful hair, as fine as spun gold; and as soon as she heard the Witch’s voice she unbound her tresses, opened the window, and then the hair fell down twenty ells, and the Witch mounted up by it.
“Rapunzel! Rapunzel!
Let down your hair!”
After a couple of years had passed away, it happened that the King’s son was riding through the wood, and came by the tower. There he heard a song so beautiful that he stood still and listened. It was Rapunzel, who, to pass the time of her loneliness away, was exercising her sweet voice. The King’s son wished to ascend to her and looked for a door to the tower, but he could not find one. So he rode home, but the song had touched his heart so much that he went every day to the forest and listened to it; and, as he thus stood one day behind a tree, he saw the Witch come up and heard her call out—Then Rapunzel let down her tresses, and the Witch mounted up. “Is that the ladder on which one must climb? Then I will try my luck, too,” said the Prince; and the following day, as he felt quite lonely, he went to the tower, and said—Then the tresses fell down, and he climbed up. Rapunzel was much frightened at first when a man came in, for she had never seen one before; but the King’s son began to talk in a friendly way to her, and told her how his heart had been so moved by her singing that he had had no peace until he had seen her himself. So Rapunzel lost her terror, and when he asked her if she would have him for a husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought, “Any one may have me, rather than the old woman;” so saying “Yes,” she put her hand within his: “I will willingly go with you, but I know not how I am to descend. When you come, bring with you a skein of silk each time, out of which I will weave a ladder, and when it is ready I will come down by it, and you must take me upon your horse.” Then they agreed that they should never meet till the evening, as the Witch came in the daytime. The old woman remarked nothing about it, until one time Rapunzel began to say to her, “Tell me, mother, how it happens you find it more difficult to come up to me than the young King’s son, who is with me in a moment?”
“Rapunzel! Rapunzel!
Let down your hair!”
“Rapunzel! Rapunzel!
Let down your hair!”
“Oh, you wicked child!” exclaimed the Witch, “what do I hear? I thought I had separated you from all the world, and yet you have deceived me.” And, seizing Rapunzel’s beautiful hair in a fury, she gave her a couple of blows with her left hand, and, taking a pair of scissors in her right, snip, snap! she cut it all off; and the beautiful tresses lay upon the ground. Then she was so hard-hearted that she took the poor maiden into a great desert, and left her to live in great misery and grief.
But the same day when the old Witch had carried Rapunzel off, in the evening she made the tresses fast above to the window latch, and when the King’s son came, and called out—she let them down. The Prince mounted; but when he got to the top he found, not his dear Rapunzel, but the Witch, who looked at him with furious and wicked eyes. “Aha!” she exclaimed, scornfully, “you would fetch your dear wife; but the beautiful bird sits no longer in her nest, singing; the cat has taken her away, and will now scratch out your eyes. To you Rapunzel is lost; you will never see her again.”
“Rapunzel! Rapunzel!
Let down your hair!”
The Prince lost his senses with grief at these words, and sprang out of the window of the tower in his bewilderment. His life he escaped with, but the thorns into which he fell put out his eyes. So he wandered, blind, in the forest, eating nothing but roots and berries, and doing nothing but weeping and lamenting for the loss of his dear wife. He wandered about thus, in great misery, for some few years, and at last arrived at the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she had given birth, lived in great sorrow. Hearing a voice which he thought he knew, he went up to her; and as he approached, Rapunzel recognised him, and fell upon his neck and wept. Two of her tears moistened his eyes, and they became clear again, so that he could see as well as formerly.
Then he led her away to his kingdom, where he was received with great demonstrations of joy, and where they lived long contented, and happy.
What became of the old Witch, no one ever knew.
The White Snake
A long while ago there lived a King whose wisdom was world-renowned. Nothing remained unknown to him, and it seemed as if the tidings of the most hidden things were borne to him through the air. But he had one strange custom: every noontime, when the table was quite cleared, and no one was present, his trusty servant had to bring him a dish, which was covered up, and the servant himself did not know what lay in it, and no man knew, for the King never uncovered it nor ate thereof until he was quite alone. This went on for a long time, until one day such a violent curiosity seized the servant, who as usual carried the dish, that he could not resist the temptation, and took the dish into his chamber. As soon as he had carefully locked the door, he raised the cover, and there lay before him a White Snake. At the sight he could not restrain the desire to taste it, so he cut a piece off and put it in his mouth. But scarcely had his tongue touched it, when he heard before his window a curious whispering of low voices. He went and listened, and found out that it was the Sparrows who were conversing with one another, and relating what each had seen in field or wood. The morsel of the Snake had given him the power to understand the speech of animals. Now it happened just on this day that the Queen lost her finest ring, and suspicion fell on this faithful servant, who had the care of all the rings, that he had stolen it. The King ordered him to appear before him, and threatened in angry words that he should be taken up and tried if he did not know before the morrow whom to name as the guilty person. He protested his innocence in vain, and was sent away without any mitigation of the sentence.
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