‘Rapunzel’, the best‐known version of which was published in the Grimms' Kinder‐ und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales, 1812) from which the title originates. In the Grimms' version, a king climbs into the garden of a witch to steal some of her Rapunzel salad leaves which his pregnant wife craves. Upon being caught by the witch, he promises her their child, whom the witch keeps in a doorless tower. One day, a prince observes the witch climbing up the girl's long golden hair and, doing likewise, he enjoys a secret relationship with Rapunzel until she becomes pregnant and the tightness of her clothes uncovers her deceit to the witch. In later editions, the Grimms revised this motif so that a naïve Rapunzel gives herself away when she unfavourably compares the witch's weight to that of the prince. The witch banishes Rapunzel to a desert and lures up the prince by letting down the girl's hair which she had cut off and tied to a window hook. To save himself, he throws himself out of the tower and, blinded by thorns, he wanders the world for many years until he finds Rapunzel with her twin children. When her tears fall on his eyes, he regains his sight.
The Grimms' source was a translation of a French literary version by Charlotte‐Rose de La Force entitled ‘Persinette’ (‘Parsley’, Les Contes des contes, 1697), and the tale's plot is also contained in Marie‐Catherine d'Aulnoy's ‘La chatte blanche’ (‘The White Cat’, Contes nouveaux ou les fées à la mode, 1698). The sentimental ending following the victimization of the lovers is a literary motif not found in oral precursors of the tale, in which the lovers successfully escape the witch because of the girl's magical powers. In Basile's ‘Petrosinella’ (Pentamerone, 1634–6), the girl throws three oak‐galls behind her which turn into a dog, a lion, and finally a wolf, who tears up the witch; and in a Catalan version, white and red roses, thrown in the path of the pursuing giant, turn into a stream and fire.
Versions of the tale are found throughout Europe, Russia, and the Americas in which the girl is blinded or turned into a frog. In a recent literary revision, Emma Donoghue uses the motif of the blind girl in ‘The Tale of the Hair’ (Kissing the Witch, 1997), but her version focuses on the old woman's care for the self‐centred girl, fulfilling all her wishes from building the tower to even impersonating the desired prince. In Anne Sexton's lesbian reading of ‘Rapunzel’ (Transformations, 1972), the older woman is left by her young lover, who gives in to social pressure for a conventional heterosexual relationship. Edith Nesbit's ‘Melisande: or, Long and Short Division’ (1908), in contrast, is an ironic interpretation where the princess's over‐abundant hair‐growth is pragmatically treated as the kingdom's most valuable export, but romantic interest requires a prince who can stop her hair growing. He achieves the desired happy end after the initial misfortune of the girl growing to immense height—which, however, allows her to defend her father's kingdom against invasion.
Bibliography
- Auerbach, Nina, and Knoepflmacher, U. C., Forbidden Journeys: Fairy Tales and Fantasies by Victorian Women Writers (1992).
- Bolte, Johannes, and Polívka, Georg, Anmerkungen zu den Kinder‐ und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm (5 vols., 1913–32).
- Lüthi, Max, ‘Die Herkunft des Grimmschen Rapunzelmärchens’,
Fabula , 3:1–2 (1959). - Warner, Marina, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers (1994).
— Karen Seago
