'Ah! you wicked child,' cried the enchantress. 'What do I hear you say! I
thought I had separated you from all the world, and yet you have deceived me!'
In her anger she clutched Rapunzel's beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice
round her left hand, seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap,
they were cut off, and the lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless
that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great grief
and misery.
On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the enchantress fastened
the braids of hair, which she had cut off, to the hook of the window, and when
the king's son came and cried:
'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
Let down your hair to me.'
she let the hair down. The king's son ascended, but instead of finding his
dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and
venomous looks.
'Aha!' she cried mockingly, 'you would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful
bird sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch
out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her again.'
The king's son was beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down
from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell
pierced his eyes.
He wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries,
and did naught but lament and weep over the loss of his dearest wife. Thus he
roamed about in misery for some years, and at length came to the desert where
Rapunzel, with the twins to which she had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived
in wretchedness. He heard a voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he
went towards it, and when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck
and wept. Two of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew clear again, and he
could see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom where he was joyfully
received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and contented.
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