Page:Hansel and Gretel and other stories.djvu/225

Rapunzel appeared at the same time, gave the child the name "Rapunzel," and took it away with her.

Rapunzel grew to be the most beautiful child under the sun, and when she was twelve years old the witch shut her up in a tower, which stood in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, and only one little window just at the top. When the witch wished to enter, she stood beneath, and called out:

For Rapunzel had long and beautiful hair, as fine as spun gold; and as soon as she heard the witch's voice she unbound her tresses, opened the window, and then the hair fell down twenty ells, and the witch mounted up by it.

After a couple of years had passed away it happened that the King's son was riding through the wood, and came by the tower. There he heard a song so beautiful that he stood still and listened. It was Rapunzel, who, to pass the time of her loneliness away, was exercising her sweet voice. The King's son wished to ascend to her, and looked for a door in the tower, but he could not find one. So he rode home, but the song had touched his heart so much that he went every day to the forest and listened to it; and as he thus stood one day behind a tree, he saw the witch come up and heard her call out:

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