Bring with you a skein of silk every time
that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready
I will descend, and you will take me on your horse." They agreed that
until that time he should come to her every evening, for the old woman
came by day. The enchantress remarked nothing of this, until once
Rapunzel said to her, "Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that you are
so much heavier for me to draw up than the young King's son--he is with
me in a moment." "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, snip, 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, however, that she cast out Rapunzel, the enchantress in
the evening 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,"

she let the hair down. The King's son ascended, but he did not find his
dearest Rapunzel above, but 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 more." 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. Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but
roots and berries, and did nothing but lament and weep over the loss of
his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about I in misery for some years, and
at length came to the desert where Rapunzel 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.

MOTHER HOLLE