Rapunzel
 There once lived a man and his wife, who had long wished for a child,
but in vain.  Now there was at the back of their house a little window
which overlooked a beautiful garden full of the finest vegetables and
flowers; but there was a high wall all round it, and no one ventured
into it, for it belonged to a witch of great might, and of whom all
the world was afraid.  One day, when the wife was standing at the win-
dow, and looking into the garden, she saw a bed filled with the finest
rampion; and it looked so fresh and green that she began to wish for
some; and at length she longed for it greatly.
 This went on for days, and she knew she could not get the rampion,
she pined away, and grew pale and miserable.  Then the man was uneasy,
and asked:
 "What is the matter, dear wife?"
 "Oh," answered she, "I shall die unless I can have some of the rampi-
on to eat that grows in the garden at the back of our house."
 The man, who loved her very much, thought to himself:
 "Rather than lose my wife I will get some rampion, cost what it will."
 So in the twilight he climbed over the wall into the witch's garden,
plucked hastily a handful of rampion and brought it to his wife.  She
made a salad of it at once, and ate of it to her heart's content.  But
she liked it so much, and it tasted so good, that the next day she
longed for it thrice as much as she had done before; if she was to have
any rest the man must climb over the wall once more.  So he went in the
twilight again; and as he was climbing back, he saw, all at once, the
witch standing before him, and was terribly frightened, as she cried,
with angry eyes:
 "How dare you climb over into my garden like a thief, and steal my
rampion!  It shall be the worse for you!"
 "Oh," answered he, "be merciful rather than just.  I have only done it
through necessity; for my wife saw your rampion out of the window, and
became possessed with so great a longing that she would have died if
she could not have had some to eat."  Then the witch said:
 "If what you tell me is true, you may have as much rampion as you
like, on one condition-the child that will come into the would must
be given to me.  I will be kind to the child, and care for it like a
mother."
 In his distress of mind the man promised everything; and when the time
came when the child was born, the witch appeared and, giving the child
the name of Rapunzel (which is the same as rampion), she took it away
with her.
 Rapunzel was the most beautiful child in the world.  When she was
twelve years old the witch shut her up in a tower in the midst of a
wood, and it had neither steps nor door, only a small window above.
When the witch wished to be let in, she would stand below and would
cry:
 "Rapunzel, Rapunzel!  let down your hair!"
 Rapunzel had beautiful long hair that shone like gold.  When she
heard the voice of the witch she would undo the fastening of the upper
window, unbind the plaits of her hair, and let it down twenty ells be-
low, and the witch would climb up by it.
 After they had lived thus a few years it happened that as the King's
son was riding through the wood, he came to the tower; and as he drew
near he heard a voice singing so sweetly that he stood still and lis-
tened.  It was Rapunzel in her loneliness trying to pass away the time
with sweet songs.  The King's son wished to go in to her, and sought
to find a door in the tower, but there was none.  So he rode home, but
the sing had entered into his heart, and every day he went into the
wood and listened to it.  Once, as he was standing there under a tree,
he saw the witch come up, and listened while she called out:
 "O Rapunzel, Rapunzel! let down your hair."
 Then he saw how Rapunzel let down her long tresses, and how the witch
climbed up by it and went in to her, and he said to himself:
 "Since that is the ladder, I will climb it, and seek my fortune."
And the next day, as soon as it began to grow dusk he went to the
tower and cried:
 "O Rapunzel, Rapunzel!  let down your hair."
 And she let down her hair, and the King's son climbed up by it.
 Rapunzel was greatly terrified when she saw that a man had come in to
her, for she had never seen one before; but the King's son began speak-
ing so kindly to her, and told how her singing had entered into his
heart, so that he could have no peace until he had seen her herself.
Then Rapunzel forgot her terror, and when he asked her to take him for
her husband, and she saw that he was young and beautiful, she thought
to herself:
 "I certainly like him much better than the old mother Gothel," and she
put her hand into his hand saying:
 "I would willingly go with you, but I do not know how I shall get out.
When you come, bring each time a silken rope, and I will make a ladder,
and when it is quite ready I will get down by it out of the tower, and
you shall take me away on your horse."  They agreed that he should come
to her every evening, as the old woman came in the daytime.  So the
witch knew nothing of all this until once Rapunzel said to her
unwittingly:
 "You are much heavier to draw up, Mother Gothel, than the King's son,
who has just left me!"  "O wicked child," cried the witch, "What is
this I hear!  I thought I had hidden you from all the world, and you
have betrayed me!"
 In her anger she seized Rapunzel by her beautiful hair, struck her
several times with her left hand, and then grasping a pair of shears
in her right - snip, snip - the beautiful locks lay on the ground.
And she was so hard-hearted that she took Rapuzel and put her in a
waste and desert place, where she lived in great woe and misery.
 The same day on which she took Rapunzel away she went back to the
tower in the evening and made fast the severed locks of hair to the
window hasp, and the King's son came and cried:
 "Rapunzel, Rapunzel!  let down your hair."
 Then she let the hair down, and the King's son climbed up, but instead
of his dearest Rapunzel he found the witch looking at him with wicked,
glistening eyes.
 "Aha!" cried she, mocking him, "you came for your darling, but the
sweet bird sits no longer in the nest, and sings no more; the cat has
got her, and will scratch out your eyes as well!  Rapunzel is lost to
you; you will see her no more."
 The King's son was beside himself with grief, and in his agony he
sprang from the tower; he escaped with life, but the thorns in which
he fell put out his eyes.  Then he wandered blind through the wood,
eating nothing but roots and berries, and doing nothing but lament and
weep for the loss of his dearest wife.
 So he wandered several years in misery until at last he came to the
desert place where Rapunzel lived with her twin-children that she had
borne, a boy and a girl.  At first he heard a voice that he thought he
knew, and when he reached the place from which it seemed to come Rapun-
zel knew him, and fell on his neck and wept.  And when her tears touch-
ed his eyes they became clear again, and he could see with them as well
as ever.
 Then he took her to his kingdom, where he was received with great joy,
and there they lived long and happily.