"
Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she
heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses,
wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the
hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it.
After a year or two, it came to pass that the King's son rode through
the forest and went by the tower; there he heard a song, which was so
charming that he stood still and listened. This was Rapunzel, who in
her solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The
King's son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the
tower, but none was to be found. He rode home, but the singing had so
deeply touched his heart that every day he went out into the forest
and listened to it. Once, when he was thus standing behind a tree, he
saw that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she cried--
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down thy hair."
Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress
climbed up to her. "If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I will
for once try my fortune," said he; and the next day when it began to
grow dark, he went to the tower and cried--
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down thy hair."
Immediately the hair fell down and the King's son climbed up.
At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man such as her eyes
had never yet beheld came to her; but the King's son began to talk
to her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so
stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to
see her.
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