Rapunzel, for the uninformed
"Rapunzel" (French: Raiponce or Persinette) is a German fairy tale most notably recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 as part of Children's and Household Tales (KHM 12). The Brothers Grimm's story was developed from the French literary fairy tale of Persinette by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force (1698), which itself is an alternative version of the Italian fairy tale Petrosinella by Giambattista Basile (1634).
After years of wishing for a child, a couple is expecting a baby. The husband and wife live next to a large, extensive, high-walled flower and herb garden belonging to a sorceress. The wife craves for the rapunzel (which is either cornsalad or rampion) that she sees growing in the garden. She refuses to eat anything else and begins to waste away. Her husband fears for her life and one night, he scales down the garden wall to steal some rapunzel for her. When the man returns home, his wife makes a salad out of the rapunzel and eats it. But the next day, the wife craves for more rapunzel, so her husband returns to the garden that night to steal some more. As he scales down the garden wall, the sorceress catches him and accuses him of theft. The man begs for mercy and explains his wife's condition. The sorceress agrees to be lenient, allowing the man to take all the rapunzel he wants on the condition that the baby be given to her when it is born. Desperate, he agrees. Different versions disagree whether the sorceress had deliberately caused her pregnant neighbour to crave the rapunzel in the first place, by design to create the pretence of taking custody of the baby instead of persecuting the man and his wife, or if it was just a coincidence that the sorceress exploited when the opportunity presented itself.
When the wife gives birth to a baby girl, the sorceress takes her to raise as her own and names her "Rapunzel" after the plant her mother had craved for. Rapunzel grows up to be a beautiful child with long golden hair. When she turns twelve, the sorceress locks her up in a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor a door, and only one room and one window at the top. In order to visit Rapunzel, the sorceress stands at the bottom of the tower and calls out:
Rapunzel!
Rapunzel!
Let down your hair
That I may climb thy golden stair!
Whenever Rapunzel hears that rhyme, she fastens her long braided hair to a hook in the window before letting it fall twenty yards to the ground, and the sorceress climbs up it.
A few years later, a prince rides through the forest and hears Rapunzel singing from the tower. Entranced by her ethereal voice, he searches for her and discovers the tower, but is unable to enter it. The prince returns to the tower often, listening to Rapunzel's beautiful singing, and one day sees the sorceress visit her as usual and learns how to gain access. When the sorceress leaves, the prince bids Rapunzel to let her hair down. Thinking it is the sorceress calling her again, Rapunzel lets down her hair and the prince climbs up. The two then fall in love and secretly marry. As the sorceress visits Rapunzel by day, the couple plans a means of escape: the prince will bring his wife a strand of silk every night until she has enough to make a ladder for her to climb down the tower and ride away with him on horseback.
Before the couple's escape plan can come to fruition, however, the sorceress visits one day and Rapunzel innocently asks her why all her clothes were tight around the waist. (Indicating the tight waists that would fit her normal body, were too tight around her pregnant stomach). her clothes are tight around the waist (this part comes from the 1812 original edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen or Children's and Household Tales, most commonly known in English as Grimms' Fairy Tales; in later editions, Rapunzel instead asks "Dame Gothel", Rapunzel in a moment of forgetfulness, asks why it is easier for her to draw up the prince than her). In anger, the sorceress cuts off Rapunzel's hair and banishes her into the wilderness to fend for herself.
When the prince calls that night, the sorceress hooks Rapunzel's severed hair and lets it down to haul him up. To the prince's horror, he finds himself meeting the sorceress instead of Rapunzel. After the sorceress tells the prince in a rage that he will never see Rapunzel again, he throws himself from the tower, landing in a patch of thorns. Although the prince survives, the thorns blind him. A month later in the wilderness, Rapunzel gives birth to her twin children with the prince – a boy and a girl.
For some years, the blind prince wanders through the wastelands of the country and eventually comes to the wilderness where Rapunzel has been living with their children. One day, as Rapunzel sings, the prince hears her voice again, and they are reunited. When they fall into each other's arms, Rapunzel sheds tears, two of which fall into the prince's eyes, immediately restoring his sight. The prince leads Rapunzel and their children to his kingdom where they live happily ever after.
Another version of the story ends with the revelation that the sorceress had untied Rapunzel's hair after the prince leapt from the tower, and it slipped from her hands and landed far below, leaving her trapped in the tower.
Some researchers have proposed that the earliest possible inspiration for the "Maiden in the Tower" archetype is to the pre-Christian European (or proto-Indo-European) sun or dawn goddess myths, in which the light deity is trapped and is rescued. Similar myths include that of the Baltic solar goddess, Saulė, who is held captive in a tower by a king. Inspiration may also be taken from the classical myth of the hero, Perseus; Perseus' mother, the Princess Danaë, was confined to a bronze tower by her own father, Acrisius, the King of Argos, in an attempt to prevent her from becoming pregnant, as it was foretold by the Oracle of Delphi that she would bear a son who would kill his grandfather.
Inspiration may come from Ethniu, daughter of Balor, in Irish myth.
Inspiration may come from the story of Saint Barbara of Nicomedia, who is said to have been a beautiful woman who was confined to a tower by her father to protect her from bad influences. While in the tower, she is said to have converted to Christianity and be ultimately martyred for her faith after a series of miracles delaying her execution. Her story was included in The Book of the City of Ladies, completed by 1405 by Christine de Pizan in vernacular French, which may have been highly influential on later writers, as it was popular throughout Europe.
The earliest surviving reference to a female character with long hair that she offers to a male lover to climb like a ladder appears in the Persian epic poem Shahnameh, written by Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE. The heroine of the story, Rudāba, offers her hair so that her love interest Zāl may enter the harem where she lives. Zāl instead uses a rope he had his servant brought with him so that she will not hurt herself.
The first written record of a story that may be recognized as Rapunzel is Giambattista Basile's Petrosinella, translating to parsley, which was published in Naples in the local dialect in 1634 in a collection entitled Lo cunto de li cunti (The Tale of Tales). This version of the story differs from later versions as it is the wife not the husband who steals the plant, the maiden is taken by the villain as a child rather than a baby, and the maiden and the prince are not separated for years to be reunited in the end. Most importantly, this version of the story contains a "flight" scene in which Petrosinella uses magic acorns that turn into animals to distract the ogress while she pursues the couple fleeing the tower. This "flight" scene, with three magic objects used as distraction, is found in oral variants in the Mediterranean region, notably Sicily (Angiola), Malta (Little Parsley and Little Fennel), and Greece (Anthousa the Fair with Golden Hair).
In 1697, Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force published a variation of the story, Persinette, while confined to an abbey due to perceived misconduct during service in the court of Louis XIV. Before her imprisonment, de la Force was a prominent figure in the Parisian salons and considered one of the early conteuses as a contemporary to Charles Perrault. This version of the story includes almost all elements that were found in later versions by the Grimm Brothers. It is the first version to include the maiden's out of wedlock pregnancy, the villain's trickery leading to the prince's blinding, the birth of twins, and the tears of the maiden restoring the prince's sight. The tale ends with the antagonist taking pity on the couple and transporting them to the prince's kingdom. While de la Force's claim that Persinette was an original story cannot be substantiated, her version was the most complex at the time and did introduce original elements.
The first known German translation of Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force's tale Persinette came about in 1766 by Friedrich Immanuel Bierling under the name "Das Cabinet der Feen. Oder gesammelte Feen-Märchen in neun Theilen, Aus dem Französischen übersetzt", published in Nürenberg. More famously, Persinette was translated into German by Friedrich Schulz and appeared in 1790 in Kleine Romane (Little Novels), as it was Schulz who changed the plant and the maiden's name to Rapunzel. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm included the story in their first (1812) and seventh (1857) edition publications of Children's and Household Tales and removed elements that they believed were added to the "original" German fairy tale. Although the Grimms' recounting of the fairy tale is the most prevalent version of the "Maiden in the Tower" in the western literary canon, the story does not appear to have connections to a Germanic oral folktale tradition. Notably, the 1812 publication retains the out of wedlock pregnancy that reveals the prince's visits to the witch, whereas in the 1857 version edited by Wilhelm Grimm, it is Rapunzel's slip of the tongue to address criticism that the tale was not appropriate for children. It can be argued that the 1857 version of the story was the first written for a primarily child-aged audience.
After years of wishing for a child, a couple is expecting a baby. The husband and wife live next to a large, extensive, high-walled flower and herb garden belonging to a sorceress. The wife craves for the rapunzel (which is either cornsalad or rampion) that she sees growing in the garden. She refuses to eat anything else and begins to waste away. Her husband fears for her life and one night, he scales down the garden wall to steal some rapunzel for her. When the man returns home, his wife makes a salad out of the rapunzel and eats it. But the next day, the wife craves for more rapunzel, so her husband returns to the garden that night to steal some more. As he scales down the garden wall, the sorceress catches him and accuses him of theft. The man begs for mercy and explains his wife's condition. The sorceress agrees to be lenient, allowing the man to take all the rapunzel he wants on the condition that the baby be given to her when it is born. Desperate, he agrees. Different versions disagree whether the sorceress had deliberately caused her pregnant neighbour to crave the rapunzel in the first place, by design to create the pretence of taking custody of the baby instead of persecuting the man and his wife, or if it was just a coincidence that the sorceress exploited when the opportunity presented itself.
When the wife gives birth to a baby girl, the sorceress takes her to raise as her own and names her "Rapunzel" after the plant her mother had craved for. Rapunzel grows up to be a beautiful child with long golden hair. When she turns twelve, the sorceress locks her up in a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor a door, and only one room and one window at the top. In order to visit Rapunzel, the sorceress stands at the bottom of the tower and calls out:
Rapunzel!
Rapunzel!
Let down your hair
That I may climb thy golden stair!
Whenever Rapunzel hears that rhyme, she fastens her long braided hair to a hook in the window before letting it fall twenty yards to the ground, and the sorceress climbs up it.
A few years later, a prince rides through the forest and hears Rapunzel singing from the tower. Entranced by her ethereal voice, he searches for her and discovers the tower, but is unable to enter it. The prince returns to the tower often, listening to Rapunzel's beautiful singing, and one day sees the sorceress visit her as usual and learns how to gain access. When the sorceress leaves, the prince bids Rapunzel to let her hair down. Thinking it is the sorceress calling her again, Rapunzel lets down her hair and the prince climbs up. The two then fall in love and secretly marry. As the sorceress visits Rapunzel by day, the couple plans a means of escape: the prince will bring his wife a strand of silk every night until she has enough to make a ladder for her to climb down the tower and ride away with him on horseback.
Before the couple's escape plan can come to fruition, however, the sorceress visits one day and Rapunzel innocently asks her why all her clothes were tight around the waist. (Indicating the tight waists that would fit her normal body, were too tight around her pregnant stomach). her clothes are tight around the waist (this part comes from the 1812 original edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen or Children's and Household Tales, most commonly known in English as Grimms' Fairy Tales; in later editions, Rapunzel instead asks "Dame Gothel", Rapunzel in a moment of forgetfulness, asks why it is easier for her to draw up the prince than her). In anger, the sorceress cuts off Rapunzel's hair and banishes her into the wilderness to fend for herself.
When the prince calls that night, the sorceress hooks Rapunzel's severed hair and lets it down to haul him up. To the prince's horror, he finds himself meeting the sorceress instead of Rapunzel. After the sorceress tells the prince in a rage that he will never see Rapunzel again, he throws himself from the tower, landing in a patch of thorns. Although the prince survives, the thorns blind him. A month later in the wilderness, Rapunzel gives birth to her twin children with the prince – a boy and a girl.
For some years, the blind prince wanders through the wastelands of the country and eventually comes to the wilderness where Rapunzel has been living with their children. One day, as Rapunzel sings, the prince hears her voice again, and they are reunited. When they fall into each other's arms, Rapunzel sheds tears, two of which fall into the prince's eyes, immediately restoring his sight. The prince leads Rapunzel and their children to his kingdom where they live happily ever after.
Another version of the story ends with the revelation that the sorceress had untied Rapunzel's hair after the prince leapt from the tower, and it slipped from her hands and landed far below, leaving her trapped in the tower.
Some researchers have proposed that the earliest possible inspiration for the "Maiden in the Tower" archetype is to the pre-Christian European (or proto-Indo-European) sun or dawn goddess myths, in which the light deity is trapped and is rescued. Similar myths include that of the Baltic solar goddess, Saulė, who is held captive in a tower by a king. Inspiration may also be taken from the classical myth of the hero, Perseus; Perseus' mother, the Princess Danaë, was confined to a bronze tower by her own father, Acrisius, the King of Argos, in an attempt to prevent her from becoming pregnant, as it was foretold by the Oracle of Delphi that she would bear a son who would kill his grandfather.
Inspiration may come from Ethniu, daughter of Balor, in Irish myth.
Inspiration may come from the story of Saint Barbara of Nicomedia, who is said to have been a beautiful woman who was confined to a tower by her father to protect her from bad influences. While in the tower, she is said to have converted to Christianity and be ultimately martyred for her faith after a series of miracles delaying her execution. Her story was included in The Book of the City of Ladies, completed by 1405 by Christine de Pizan in vernacular French, which may have been highly influential on later writers, as it was popular throughout Europe.
The earliest surviving reference to a female character with long hair that she offers to a male lover to climb like a ladder appears in the Persian epic poem Shahnameh, written by Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE. The heroine of the story, Rudāba, offers her hair so that her love interest Zāl may enter the harem where she lives. Zāl instead uses a rope he had his servant brought with him so that she will not hurt herself.
The first written record of a story that may be recognized as Rapunzel is Giambattista Basile's Petrosinella, translating to parsley, which was published in Naples in the local dialect in 1634 in a collection entitled Lo cunto de li cunti (The Tale of Tales). This version of the story differs from later versions as it is the wife not the husband who steals the plant, the maiden is taken by the villain as a child rather than a baby, and the maiden and the prince are not separated for years to be reunited in the end. Most importantly, this version of the story contains a "flight" scene in which Petrosinella uses magic acorns that turn into animals to distract the ogress while she pursues the couple fleeing the tower. This "flight" scene, with three magic objects used as distraction, is found in oral variants in the Mediterranean region, notably Sicily (Angiola), Malta (Little Parsley and Little Fennel), and Greece (Anthousa the Fair with Golden Hair).
In 1697, Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force published a variation of the story, Persinette, while confined to an abbey due to perceived misconduct during service in the court of Louis XIV. Before her imprisonment, de la Force was a prominent figure in the Parisian salons and considered one of the early conteuses as a contemporary to Charles Perrault. This version of the story includes almost all elements that were found in later versions by the Grimm Brothers. It is the first version to include the maiden's out of wedlock pregnancy, the villain's trickery leading to the prince's blinding, the birth of twins, and the tears of the maiden restoring the prince's sight. The tale ends with the antagonist taking pity on the couple and transporting them to the prince's kingdom. While de la Force's claim that Persinette was an original story cannot be substantiated, her version was the most complex at the time and did introduce original elements.
The first known German translation of Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force's tale Persinette came about in 1766 by Friedrich Immanuel Bierling under the name "Das Cabinet der Feen. Oder gesammelte Feen-Märchen in neun Theilen, Aus dem Französischen übersetzt", published in Nürenberg. More famously, Persinette was translated into German by Friedrich Schulz and appeared in 1790 in Kleine Romane (Little Novels), as it was Schulz who changed the plant and the maiden's name to Rapunzel. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm included the story in their first (1812) and seventh (1857) edition publications of Children's and Household Tales and removed elements that they believed were added to the "original" German fairy tale. Although the Grimms' recounting of the fairy tale is the most prevalent version of the "Maiden in the Tower" in the western literary canon, the story does not appear to have connections to a Germanic oral folktale tradition. Notably, the 1812 publication retains the out of wedlock pregnancy that reveals the prince's visits to the witch, whereas in the 1857 version edited by Wilhelm Grimm, it is Rapunzel's slip of the tongue to address criticism that the tale was not appropriate for children. It can be argued that the 1857 version of the story was the first written for a primarily child-aged audience.
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