Once upon a time in a grand kingdom far away there lived a king and queen who were admired by all. And though they loved each other very much, they wished to have a family with many children to run around the palace grounds. But the lovely queen could not birth a child and was forced to love in sadness for she could never have a family of her own. The king, with his kind heart, could not bear to see his beautiful wife so forlorn and he derived a plan with good intent. The king sent his men far and wide to search for an orphaned child so that the queen might care for the child as her own. Thus, the king’s men rode throughout the kingdom in search of a child for the queen. They found quite a few but left them behind for they were dirty and frail and surely they would not please the queen. And after they had searched every corner of the kingdom they could not find a child fit to be brought back. So they traveled beyond the borders and into the great, vast forest of the magic realm. Day and night they rode beneath the dark trees until they came upon a little woodsman cottage with its chimney smoke rising up. Through the glass pane window they saw a family sitting ‘round the fireplace. The father was dressed quite commonly, in the fashion that all woodcutters wore, and the mother sat delicately on her pine-wrought rocking chair, but in her arms lay exactly what the riders had been looking for. There lay a baby girl with a warm face and golden hair down to ankles even though she was but an infant. So the soldiers burst into the humble lodge and swept away the baby form her mother’s arms and rode hard back to the king while her parents wailed and mourned.

Eighteen years later stood a woman tall and lovely. Beyond her petite figure, her rounded face, and all her other fair features, her hair shone above them all. Locks of wheat came flowing down so long that it filled up almost quite a whole room. No one knew where she had come from, no one cared to ask. For throughout the kingdom she was loved as the beautiful Princess Rapunzel. The king and queen had grown older as the gray began to peep out of their crowns. They had noticed how Rapunzel grew and how she attracted all sorts of suitors, but as loving as they were, the king and queen were also quite jealous. They wanted to keep their daughter all for themselves for fear that if she married she might go away and never return. So they locked her up in a castle tower and sealed up the doors. Rapunzel was never to see anyone but her parents who scaled up a ladder every morning to visit their daughter.


One fine day there came a prince who glimpsed Princess Rapunzel from her tower winder. He found her to be quite beautiful and vowed that he would marry her. But alas, he had no way to traverse into the tower to claim her as his own. With a loud voice he cried out “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let me in!” Rapunzel hearing his voice looked out and saw a handsome prince atop a shining white horse. Well being locked up in a tower and all, she had a lot of time to read many books with this same situation and decided she had better hoist him up before he got bored and left. But looking around she could not find any rope so she cast out her hair, which reached the bottom, so that he might climb up it. The prince did just so but as he was climbing his weight was too much. By the time he stepped onto the window ledge, poor Rapunzel was completely bald. Unknowingly the price had pulled out every strand of her golden hair. Upon seeing her, and her bald head, the prince was shocked! He thought Rapunzel to be a witch and in fear he jumped out the window and fell to his death. Rapunzel, now with no hair and no prince, cried and cried till she no more tears either. And thus the grand Princess Rapunzel was forced to live the rest of her life bald, dry-eyed, and heartbroken.