Illustration by Johnny Gruelle

"Rapunzel" is a German fairy tale in the collection assembled by the Brothers Grimm, and first published in 1812 as part of Children's and Household Tales.^[1] It is one of the best known fairy tales, and its plot has been used and parodied by many cartoonists and comedians, its best known line ("Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair") having entered popular culture. Rapunzel is a character in a fairytale recorded by the Brothers Grimm. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (700x950, 154 KB) Johnny Gruelle illustration - Rapunzel - Project Gutenberg etext 11027 From The Project Gutenberg eBook, Grimms Fairy Stories, by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, Illustrated by John B Gruelle and R. Emmett Owen http://www. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (700x950, 154 KB) Johnny Gruelle illustration - Rapunzel - Project Gutenberg etext 11027 From The Project Gutenberg eBook, Grimms Fairy Stories, by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, Illustrated by John B Gruelle and R. Emmett Owen http://www. ... Rapunzel, from an edition of Grimms Fairy Tales, illustrated by Johnny Gruelle Johnny Gruelle (December 24, 1880 - January 8, 1938) was an artist, political cartoonist, and writer of childrens books. ... German culture (German: Deutsche Kultur) is a term that refers to the heritage and weltanschauung of the people from the German-speaking world, or Deutschsprechende Welt. ... A fairy tale is a story, either told to children or as if told to children, concerning the adventures of mythical characters such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants, and others. ... For other uses, see Brothers Grimm (disambiguation). ... Grimms Kinder- und Hausmärchen - Erster Theil (1812) Cover Art The world famous collection of German (and French) fairy tales Kinder- und Hausmärchen (KHM; English: Childrens and Household Tales), commonly known as Grimms Fairy Tales, was published by Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm and Wilhelm Karl Grimm...

Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book.^[2] Another version of the tale also appears in A Book of Witches by Ruth Manning-Sanders. For the former National Basketball Association player, see Andrew Lang (basketball). ... Rumpelstiltskin from The Blue Fairy Book, by Henry J. Ford Andrew Langs Fairy Books are a twelve-book series of fairy tale collections. ... A Book of Witches is a 1966 anthology of 12 fairy tales from Europe that have been collected and retold by Ruth Manning-Sanders. ... Ruth Manning-Sanders (born 1895 in Swansea, Wales; died October 12, 1988, in Penzance, England) was a poet and author who was perhaps best known for her series of childrens books in which she collected and retold fairy tales from all over the world. ...

Synopsis

A childless couple who wanted a child lived next to a walled garden which belonged to an enchantress. The wife, at long last pregnant, noticed some rapunzel (or, in some versions [1] of the story, radishes or lamb's lettuce), planted in the garden and longed for it to the point of death. For two nights, the husband went out and broke into the witch's garden to gather some for her, but on the third night, as he was scaling the wall to return home, the enchantress (Dame Gothel) appeared and accused him of thievery. He begged for mercy, and the old woman agreed to give him some, on condition that the child his wife was pregnant with be surrendered to her at birth. Desperate, the man agreed; a girl was born; the enchantress appeared, and the child was taken away. She named her Rapunzel. When Rapunzel reached her twelfth year, the enchantress shut her away into a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor door, and only one room and one window. When the witch went to visit Rapunzel, she stood beneath the tower and called out: For other uses of the words enchantment, enchanter, or enchantress, see enchantment (disambiguation). ... bunch of radishes The radish (Raphanus sativus) is a root vegetable of the Cruciferae family. ... Binomial name Valerianella locusta L. Corn salad (Valerianella locusta) is a small dicot annual plant of the family Valerianaceae. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Witchcraft. ... A young waif steals a pair of boots Stealing redirects here. ...

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair

Rapunzel in the castle park in Ludwigsburg

Upon hearing these words, Rapunzel would wrap her long, fair hair around a hook that sat beside the window, and drop it down to the enchantress, who would then climb up the hair to Rapunzel. Image File history File links LudwigsburgRapunzel. ... Image File history File links LudwigsburgRapunzel. ... One of the worlds most famous blondes Marilyn Monroe, who was in fact a natural brunette Blond (feminine, blonde) is a hair colour found in certain mammals characterised by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin and higher levels of the pale pigment phæomelanin, in common with red or...

One day a prince rode through the forest and heard Rapunzel singing from the tower. Entranced by her ethereal voice, he went to look for the girl and found the tower, but no door leading in, and no stairway leading up. He then returned often, listening to her beautiful singing, and one day saw the enchantress visit, thus learning how to gain access to Rapunzel. When the witch was gone he bade Rapunzel let her hair down, and he climbed up, made her acquaintance, and finally asked her to marry him. Rapunzel agreed. The term prince, from the Latin root princeps, is used for a member of the highest ranks of the aristocracy or the nobility. ... Matrimony redirects here. ...

Together they planned a way to get her out of the tower: he would come each night (thus avoiding the enchantress who visited her by day), and bring her silk, which Rapunzel would gradually weave into a ladder. Before the plan came to fruition however, Rapunzel foolishly gave the prince away. In the first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, Rapunzel innocently asks why her dress was getting tight around her belly, alerting the witch. In subsequent editions, she asked the witch one day (in a moment of forgetfulness) why it was easier for her to draw him up instead of her.^[3] In anger, Dame Gothel cut short Rapunzel's braided hair and cast her out into the wilderness to fend for herself. For other uses of this word, see Silk (disambiguation). ... A ladder A ladder is a vertical set of steps. ... Frontispiece of first volume of Grimms Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1812). ... This article is about human pregnancy in biological females. ...

When the prince called that night, the enchantress let the braids down to haul him up. To his horror he found himself staring at the witch instead of Rapunzel, who was nowhere to be found. When she told him in anger that he would never see Rapunzel again, he leapt from the tower in despair and was blinded by the thorns below. This article is about the visual condition. ...

For months he wandered through the wastelands of the country. During this time, Rapunzel gave birth to the prince's twin children, a boy and a girl. One day, while Rapunzel sang as she fetched water, the prince heard Rapunzel's voice again, and they were reunited. When they fell into each other's arms, her tears immediately restored his sight. The prince led her and their children to his kingdom, where they lived happily ever after. Parturition redirects here. ... For other uses, see Twin (disambiguation). ... Happily Ever After can refer to: Happily Ever After, a compilation double-LP comprising The Cure albums Seventeen Seconds and Faith; it was a U.S.-only issue by A&M Records. ...

Commentary

The witch is called "Mother Gothel", a common term for a godmother in German.^[4] She features as the overprotective parent, and interpretations often differ on how negatively she is to be regarded.^[5]

Folkloric beliefs often regarded it as quite dangerous to deny a pregnant woman any food she craved. Family members would often go to great lengths to secure such cravings. ^[6] Such desires for lettuce and like vegetables may indicate a need on her part for vitamins.^[7]

The uneven bargain with which it opens is quite common in fairy tales having little else in common with this one: in Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack trades a cow for beans, and in Beauty and the Beast, Beauty comes to the Beast in return for a rose.^[8] Illustration by Arthur Rackham from a 1918 English Fairy Tales, by Flora Annie Steel Jack and the Beanstalk is an English fairy tale, closely associated with the tale of Jack the Giant Killer. ... For other uses, see Beauty and the Beast (disambiguation). ...

Origins

An influence on Grimm's Rapunzel was Petrosinella or Parsley, written by Giambattista Basile in his collection of fairy tales in 1634, Lo cunto de li cunti (The Story of Stories), or "Pentamerone". This tells a similar tale of a pregnant woman desiring some parsley from the garden of an ogress, getting caught, and having to promise the ogress her baby. The encounters between the prince and the maiden in the tower are described in quite bawdy language. ^[9] The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... Giambattista Basile (1566 or 1575–February 23, 1632) was an Italian poet, courtier, and fairy tale collector. ...

About half a century later, in France, a similar story was published by Mademoiselle de la Force, called "Persinette". As Rapunzel did in the first edition of the Brothers Grimm, Persinette becomes pregnant because of the prince's visits. ^[10] Charlotte-Rose de Caumont La Force or Mademoiselle de La Force (1654 - 1724) was a French novelist and poet. ...

Variants

Italo Calvino included in his Italian Folktales a similar tale of a princess imprisoned in a tower, "The Canary Prince", though the imprisonment was caused by her stepmother's jealousy. Italo Calvino, on the cover of Lezioni americane: Sei proposte per il prossimo millennio Italo Calvino (October 15, 1923 – September 19, 1985) (pronounced ) was an Italian writer and novelist. ... Italian Folktales (Fiabe Italiane) is a collection of 200 Italian folktales published in 1956 by Italo Calvino. ... The Canary Prince is an Italian fairy tale, the 18th tale in Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino. ...

A German tale Puddocky also opens with a girl falling into the hands of a witch because of stolen food, but the person who craves it is the girl herself, and the person who steals it her mother. Another Italian tale, Prunella, has the girl steal the food and be captured by a witch. Puddocky is a German fairy tale. ... Prunella is an Italian fairy tale. ...

Snow-White-Fire-Red, another Italian tale of this type, and Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa tell the story from the hero's point of view; he and the heroine escape the ogress, but have to deal with a curse after. Snow-White-Fire-Red is an Italian fairy tale collected by Thomas Frederick Crane in Italian Popular Tales. ... Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa or Anthousa the Fair with Golden Hair is a Greek fairy tale collected by Georgios A. Megas in Folktales of Greece. ...

What is "Rapunzel"?

Campanula rapunculus, one candidate

It is difficult to be certain which plant species the Brothers Grimm meant by the word Rapunzel, but the following, listed in their own dictionary,[2] are candidates. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (600x800, 67 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Rapunzel ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (600x800, 67 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Rapunzel ... Species   Wild Flower Northern European   species are listed below:  C. bononiensis  C. barbata (bearded bellflower)  C. cervicaria  C. glomerata (clustered bellflower)  C. latifolia (giant bellflower)  C. medium (Canterbury bells)  C. patula (spreading bellflower)  C. persicifolia (peach-leaved bellflower)  C. rapunculoides (creeping bellflower)  C. rapunculus (rampion bellflower)  C. rotundifolia (harebell)  C...

1. Valerianella locusta, common names: Corn salad, mache, lamb's lettuce, field salad. Rapunzel is called Feldsalat in Germany, Nuesslisalat in Switzerland and Vogerlsalat in Austria. In cultivated form it has a low growing rosette of succulent green rounded leaves when young, when they are picked whole, washed of grit and eaten with oil and vinegar. When it bolts to seed it shows clusters of small white flowers. Etty's seed catalogue states Corn Salad (Verte de Cambrai) was in use by 1810.
2. Campanula rapunculus is known as Rapunzel-Glockenblume in German, and as Rampion in Etty's seed catalogue, and although classified under a different family, Campanulaceae, has a similar rosette when young, although with pointed leaves. Some English translations of Rapunzel used the word Rampion. Etty's catalogue states that it was noted in 1633, an esteemed root in salads, and to be sown in April or May. Herb catalogue Sand Mountain Herbs describes the root as extremely tasty, and the rosette leaves as edible, and that its blue bell-flowers appear in June or July."
3. Phyteuma spicata (picture), known as Ährige Teufelskralle in German.

Binomial name Valerianella locusta L. Corn salad (Valerianella locusta) is a small plant of the family Valerianaceae which grows in a low rosette and in mild climates is used as a winter green, especially in salads. ... Species   Wild Flower Northern European   species are listed below:  C. bononiensis  C. barbata (bearded bellflower)  C. cervicaria  C. glomerata (clustered bellflower)  C. latifolia (giant bellflower)  C. medium (Canterbury bells)  C. patula (spreading bellflower)  C. persicifolia (peach-leaved bellflower)  C. rapunculoides (creeping bellflower)  C. rapunculus (rampion bellflower)  C. rotundifolia (harebell)  C... Genera See text. ... Rosettes can refer for: A small, circular, device that can be awarded with medals (see: Rosette (decoration)). A type of plant with their leaves at an upset stem in a typical form. ... Species See text Campanula is one of two genera of bell-flowers in the family Campanulaceae, the other being Campanulastrum. ... In general terms, eating is the process of consuming something edible. ... Species See text Phyteuma is a genus of about 40-45 species of flowering plants in the family Campanulaceae, native to Europe and western Asia. ...

Adaptations

• In one "Treehouse of Horror" episode of The Simpsons, Homer tries to climb a wall using Rapunzel's hair and it results in the hair being ripped from her head and his falling, due to his weight. It is unknown whether she died or not, and Homer, who is distraught by this, quietly hides the hair behind a bush and walks away whistling.
• In a ChalkZone short originally featured on Oh Yeah! Cartoons, Snap takes Rudy and Penny to see Queen Rapsheeba performing a stage musical of the story, which is threatened by a storm cloud that nearly demolishes the theater.
• Rapunzel appears in the Doctor Who story The Mind Robber.
• In Happy Tree Friends, in the "Dunce upon a time" episode, Petunia is portrayed as Rapunzel.
• Donna Jo Napoli wrote a young adult novel, Zel, based on a sixteenth-century Swiss Rapunzel.
• The German industrial rock group Megaherz adapted the story to a song, also called "Rappunzel", for their 1998 album Kopfschuss.
• The Rapunzel concept was featured in an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV Series)
• Emilie Autumn's album Enchant includes another version of the story in song form entitled "Rapunzel".
• California composer Lou Harrison wrote his opera "Rapunzel" in 2001.
• Upcoming animated feature from Walt Disney Feature Animation, Rapunzel.
• The story of Rapunzel is one of the plotlines of the musical Into the Woods.Rapunzel herself was one of many characters, as was her Prince, but the Witch served a more important role, tying all of the tales together.
• Rapunzel is a character in the comic book series Fables in which her forays into the mundane world are strictly limited to 25 minutes at a time and no more than 2 hours at the most a day so that people will not notice her fast growing hair. Her hair has to be cut 3 times a day by Joel. She was also seen in the Last Castle one shot along with the fables fleeing the homelands after the last grisly battle. She is on the boat with the other fables as well as at the mini Remembrance Day to honor the fables who had not escaped and died in battle.
• The story was adapted in one of the episodes for the 1987 anime series Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics by Nippon Animation 1. The English adaptation of this episode produced by Saban Entertainment made a few changes to the story: instead of rapunzel or radishes, it was Rapunzel's father's theft of lettuce from Dame Gothel's (the witch is not given a name in this version) field that set the story in motion; and instead of leaping out the window of Rapunzel's tower on his own, the prince was pushed out the window by Dame Gothel's magic.
• In Airplane!, Captain Kramer states that they are moving to the air control tower. Johnny leaps and cries out "The tower? The tower? Rapunzel! Rapunzel!"
• The videos for Vanessa Carlton's Nolita Fairytale and Gwen Stefani's The Sweet Escape (song) each feature a Rapunzel concept.
• Scissor Sisters' video for "Mary" features an animated segment that tells a version of the Rapunzel story.
• One of the animated Barbie movies "Rapunzel" adapts the fairytale significantly featuring Barbie as Rapunzel who holds a magic paintbrush which allows her to leave her tower and meet the prince.
• The first episode of Fractured Fairy Tales on Rocky & His Friends was an adaptation of Rapunzel.
• Dave Matthews Band produced a song called Rapunzel.
• J. R. R. Tolkien seems to have drawn upon this fairy tale in chapter 19 of The Silmarillion, entitled "Of Beren and Lúthien". In it, Lúthien uses her hair Rapunzel-style to escape her prison in a tall tree-house, and also to weave a cloak of invisibility.^[11]
• Thomas Pynchon's novel The Crying of Lot 49 includes a deconstructed version of the Rapunzel fairy tale in which gender roles are satirized.
• John Moore (author) used a character of Rapunzel in his novel The Unhandsome Prince, humorously. She discusses with the main character what kind of shampoo she has to used to have shiny long hair).
• Rapunzel is in cahoots with Prince Charming in the 2007 film Shrek the Third.
• The story of Rapunzel was parodied in a Sesame Street News Flash.
• In the NBC TV Mini-Series The 10th Kingdom the character played by Kimberly Williams is cursed to have everlasting growing hair, which is later used as a spoof of Rapunzel when the male lead must climb her hair to save her from a tree she is trapped in.
• In the 2008 Fairy Tales series, the story is adapted to make Rapunzel a female tennis player with an overprotective mother-manager.
• Golden by Cameron Dokey is a much revised version of Rapunzel, where the role of the Rapunzel character is divided between two of the main characters.
• Rapunzel's Revenge by Newbery Honor recipient Shannon Hale and her husband Dean Hale is inspired by the original Grimm's tale. A graphic novel, the book is illustrated by Nathan Hale (no relation), and will be released August 2008.

This article refers to the first Treehouse of Horror episode. ... Simpsons redirects here. ... Homer Simpson is also a character in the book and film The Day of the Locust. ... ChalkZone was an American animated television series that aired from March 22, 2002 until 2006 on Nickelodeon. ... Oh Yeah! Cartoons was a late-1990s American animation showcase that appeared on the Nickelodeon cable channel. ... This article is about the television series. ... The Mind Robber is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in five weekly parts from September 14 to October 12, 1968. ... Happy Tree Friends is a Flash cartoon series by Mondo Mini Shows, created by Kenn Navarro, Aubrey Ankrum, Rhode Montijo and Warren Graff. ... Donna Jo Napoli is an author of childrens and young adult books, as well as a prominent linguist with work in syntax, phonetics, phonology, morphology, historical and comparative linguistics, Romance studies, structure of Japanese, structure of American Sign Language, poetics, writing for ESL students, and mathematical and linguistic analysis... For the unit of frequency, see megahertz. ... Sabrina, the Teenage Witch is a fictional comic book character, and more recently, a US sitcom. ... Emilie Autumn (born September 22, 1979 in Malibu, California) is an American singer-songwriter, poet, and violinist, currently living in Chicago. ... For other uses of the words enchantment, enchanter, or enchantress, see enchantment (disambiguation). ... Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 - February 2, 2003) was an American composer. ... For other uses, see Opera (disambiguation). ... Animation refers to the technique in which each frame of a film or movie is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result. ... Walt Disney Feature Animation (WDFA) is the animation studio that makes up a key element of The Walt Disney Company. ... Rapunzel is an American animation film scheduled for release in 2009 and produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and Walt Disney Pictures and to be distributed by Buena Vista Pictures in the United States. ... Musical theater (or theatre) is a form of theatre combining music, songs, dance, and spoken dialogue. ... This article is about the musical production. ... Fables is a Vertigo comic book series created and written by Bill Willingham. ... Animé redirects here. ... Grimms Fairy Tale Classics , Grimm Masterpiece Theatre) is an anime series produced by Nippon Animation. ... Nippon Animation logo. ... Saban Entertainment was an independent television production company formed in 1983 by music and television producers Haim Saban and Shuki Levy as Saban Records, a U.S. subsidiary of Saban International Paris (now SIP Animation) who provided music soundtracks to shows made by other companies (most notably DIC). ... Binomial name L. Lettuce and chicory output in 2005 Vit. ... Airplane! is an American comedy film, first released on 27 June 1980, produced, directed, and written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. ... Vanessa Lee Carlton (born August 16, 1980) is an American soft rock/Piano pop singer, songwriter, and pianist best known for the Billboard top five, Grammy-nominated single A Thousand Miles from her debut album, Be Not Nobody which was released April 30, 2002, and certified platinum in the U... Nolita Fairytale is a song by Vanessa Carlton, and is the first single from her third album, Heroes & Thieves. ... Gwen Renée Stefani (born October 3, 1969) (pronounced [1]), is an American singer, songwriter, fashion designer, and occasional actress. ... Akon singles chronology The Sweet Escape is a pop song written by Gwen Stefani, Akon, and Giorgio Tuinfort for Stefanis second solo album The Sweet Escape (2006). ... The Scissor Sisters are an American alternative band who formed in 2001. ... Mary is a song by American glam rock band Scissor Sisters and is the fourth track on their self-titled debut album (see 2004 in music). ... DVD Box Art Barbie as Rapunzel is a direct-to-video Barbie movie that is an adaptation of the Grimms fairy tale Rapunzel. It was the first such movie to air on television in the United States. ... Bullwinkle (left) and Rocky (right), the stars of Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show. ... Bullwinkle (left) and Rocky (right), the stars of Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show. ... Dave Matthews Band (also known by the acronym DMB) is a United States-based rock band, originally formed in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1991 by singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews. ... Tolkien redirects here. ... This article is about the book by J. R. R. Tolkien. ... The Lay of Leithian is an unfinished poem written by J. R. R. Tolkien during the 1930s. ... Lúthien Tinúviel is a fictional character in the fantasy-world Middle-earth of the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. ... Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. ... The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) is a novel by the author Thomas Pynchon. ... John Moore is an accomplished author, having written several books, including Slay And Rescue, The Unhandsome Prince, and Heroics For Beginners. ... Prince Charming meets Cinderella in a 1912 book of fairy tales. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... This article is about the film. ... The Sesame Street News Flash segments were a regular part of the childrens TV show Sesame Street from 1971 up until 2001. ... The 10th Kingdom is a made-for-TV mini-series written by screenplay writer Simon Moore. ... Kimberly Williams-Paisley (born September 14, 1971 in Rye, New York) is an American actress. ... Cameron Dokey is an American author. ... The Newbery Honor is a citation given by the Association for Library Service to Children of the American Library Association (ALA). ... Shannon Hale (born January 26, 1974) is an American author of young adult fantasy and adult fiction. ... Trade paperback of Will Eisners A Contract with God (1978), often mistakenly cited as the first graphic novel. ...

See also

• Rudaba
• Rapunzel syndrome

Rudaba or Roodabeh (رودابه in Persia) was Daughter of Mehrab Kaboli. ... Rapunzel Syndrome (also known as Trichobezoar) is an extremely rare intestinal condition. ...

References

Tolkien redirects here. ... Christopher Reuel Tolkien (born November 21, 1924) is best known as the third son of author J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973), and as the editor of much of his fathers posthumously published work. ... This article is about the book by J. R. R. Tolkien. ... Houghton Mifflin Company is a leading educational publisher in the United States. ...

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Rapunzel

• Annotated Rapunzel on SurLaLune Fairy Tales, featuring bibliography of Rapunzel variations, history, illustrations and more
• D.L. Ashliman's Grimm Brothers website. The classification is based on Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson, The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, (Helsinki, 1961).
• Translated comparison of 1812 and 1857 versions
• "Rapunzel" by William Morris
• Rapunzel AudioStory
• The Girl in the Tower Alison Lurie on Rapunzel from The New York Review of Books