Rapunzel

What features of your story do readers remember you by?

I know nothing of what readers remember, but I can tell you what marked my life most clearly: my long golden hair, the tower without a door or stairs, and my singing. My hair let others climb to my window. My voice reached farther than the walls and first drew the prince toward me. Much later, in the wilderness, he heard me singing again and found me. These things belong together in my life: the tower confined me, while my voice could still travel beyond it.

Why does your story still draw readers?

I know nothing of readers beyond my story, so I cannot say what brings them to it. I can only speak of what I lived: confinement, the hope of leaving, a secret discovered, and a long separation before a joyful return. My tower seemed to offer no way out, yet I began making plans for one. Even after those plans failed, my life did not end in that room or in sorrow. There was wilderness to endure, children to care for, and finally a home beyond the tower.

What advice would you give someone planning a secret escape?

I would say to think carefully about both the way out and the words you speak while waiting. We had a practical plan: the prince would bring silk, and I would make a ladder long enough to reach the ground. But I asked an innocent question that revealed his visits to the sorceress. I had not understood what my words would disclose. My own plan never reached its end, so I cannot promise success; I can only say that a hidden hope can be exposed before its work is finished.

What do you most regret about revealing your secret?

What pains me most is how much suffering followed words I spoke without understanding their danger. Our ladder was not finished, and I had not meant to reveal the prince's visits. The sorceress cut off my hair and sent me into the wilderness. She then used the severed braid to draw him into the tower, and he lost his sight after leaping down into thorns. I regret that our hope of leaving quietly ended in separation and hardship, though we did at last find one another again.

Why did your escape plan require patience?

My escape could not happen in a single night because the tower had neither stairs nor a door. I needed a way down from the high window. The prince was to bring silk each night, and I planned to make it into a ladder long enough to reach the ground. That meant waiting for more silk and working until the ladder was ready. I could imagine leaving, but imagining was not enough: our plan depended on many small steps before I could take the last one.

What did you do to keep the sorceress from discovering your marriage?

I kept our marriage secret from the sorceress, and the prince came at night with silk for the ladder I meant to make. We hoped to leave before she discovered our plan. Yet I did not understand how easily an innocent question could betray what I was hiding. I asked something that revealed the secret without meaning to do so. After that, she cut off my hair and sent me away. My silence had protected the plan for a time, but I was not careful enough.

How did your life change when you were sent into the wilderness?

In the tower, I had lived in one high room, with no stairs or door and only the window through which anyone could reach me. When the sorceress cut off my hair and sent me into the wilderness, that enclosed life ended, but my troubles did not. I was separated from the prince and lived with our two children. My story gives few details of those years. What changed most plainly was that I was no longer confined in the tower, yet I still faced hardship.

Did the failure of your escape plan end your chance of being together?

No, the failure of our plan was not the end of our chance to be together. The sorceress sent me into the wilderness, and the prince lost his sight after leaping from the tower into the thorns below. I lived with my two children, a boy and a girl, while he wandered. Years later, he heard my singing and found me again. My tears restored his sight, and he took the children and me to his kingdom, where our hardships finally ended.

Why did the sorceress name you Rapunzel?

The sorceress named me after the plant my mother had craved: rapunzel. It grew in her walled garden, where my father went to steal it for my mother. When he was caught, he promised the sorceress the child who was yet to be born. After my birth, she took me and gave me the plant's name. My name therefore carries the beginning of my story, from my mother's craving to the bargain that put me in the sorceress's care.

What made your tower impossible to enter by ordinary means?

My tower had neither a door nor stairs. There was only a room with a window high above the ground, so no visitor could simply walk inside and climb up to me. The sorceress shut me there when I was twelve. My long hair became the means by which she reached the window: I let my braid down, and she climbed it. The same tower that kept ordinary visitors out also left me without an ordinary way to leave.

How did the sorceress use your hair to reach your room?

When the sorceress came to visit, she called up to me, and I lowered my long, golden braid from the window. She used it to climb the height of the tower and reach my room. There was no staircase or doorway for her to use instead. My hair was her way in, but it was not a way for me to climb down myself. Later, the prince discovered how she entered and reached my window by following the same method.

How did the prince first discover you?

The prince first discovered me through my singing. He heard my voice coming from the tower, though there was no door through which he could enter and no stairs leading to my room. He then discovered how the sorceress reached me: she called, I lowered my hair, and she climbed up. He followed her example. When I first heard his call, I believed it was the sorceress, for that was the way she had always come to my window.

How did the prince learn the way into your tower?

The prince first heard me singing in the tower. There was no door for him to enter and no staircase for him to climb, so hearing my voice did not immediately show him a way inside. He learned by watching how the sorceress reached me. When she called, I lowered my long braided hair from the window, and she climbed it. He followed her example. When I heard his call, I first thought it was the sorceress returning.

What happened when the sorceress discovered your secret?

I gave away the secret without understanding what my innocent question would reveal. Once the sorceress knew, she cut off my long hair and sent me away into the wilderness. The ladder I had planned to make from silk never became my way out of the tower. Instead, I was driven from it, leaving my severed hair behind in her hands. That was not the freedom I had hoped for, and the harm did not end with my departure.

How did the sorceress lure the prince into the tower after you were gone?

The sorceress kept the hair she had cut from my head. After sending me into the wilderness, she used those severed braids to bring the prince up to the window. He had learned to enter by climbing my hair, and she turned that familiar way into a trap. I was no longer in the room above him. What had once allowed someone to reach me now helped the sorceress deceive him, because the hair remained even though I was gone.

How did the prince lose his sight?

The prince lost his sight after the sorceress had sent me away. She used my cut hair to draw him up into the tower, where I was no longer waiting. He leaped from the tower and fell among the thorns below. Those thorns injured his eyes and left him blind. I was already in the wilderness, so I was not there beside him when he fell. Before we found one another again, he wandered without his sight for years.

How did the prince find you again in the wilderness?

He found me through my singing, just as my voice had first drawn him toward the tower. By then I was living in the wilderness with my two children, a boy and a girl. He had wandered for years without his sight. When he heard me sing, he found his way back to me. My long hair was no longer hanging from a high window to guide him upward; this time, it was my voice that brought us together again.

How was the prince's sight restored?

My tears fell into his eyes when we were together again in the wilderness, and his sight returned. The thorns beneath the tower had blinded him, and he had spent years wandering before he heard my singing and found me. I cannot explain the wonder beyond what happened: my tears touched his eyes, and he could see again. After that, he took me and my two children to his kingdom, and the hardship of our separation was at an end.

Who recorded your tale, and when was it first published?

I know nothing of who may have written down my tale or when it may have been published. What I know begins with the promise made before my birth and continues through the tower, the wilderness, and the home I finally reached with my children. My name came from the plant my mother wanted from the sorceress's garden. My father was caught taking it, and his promise placed me in the sorceress's hands. That is the beginning I can tell you.

How did the sorceress's role in your life change when you turned twelve?

The sorceress had claimed me before I was born, because my father promised her his unborn child after she caught him taking the plant from her garden. She took me as a baby and gave me my name. When I turned twelve, her keeping of me became confinement in a tower in the woods. There were no stairs and no door, only a window high above the ground. I had to lower my braided hair whenever she wanted to climb up.

Whose voice did you think you heard when the prince first called to you?

I thought I heard the sorceress calling to me. She reached my room by climbing my long braid, so I believed the call below my window was hers. The tower had neither stairs nor a door through which anyone could enter. I did not yet understand that the prince had discovered how she came up. He had heard my singing and watched her way of entering, then used that same way to reach me.

What commitment did you and the prince make before planning your escape?

We married in secret before making our plan to leave the tower. That was the commitment we had made to one another, and I wanted to keep it hidden from the sorceress. Leaving could not happen simply by wishing for it: my room was high above the ground, with no stairs and no door below. We planned for him to bring silk each night, and for me to make a ladder long enough to climb down.

Why did you need the prince to bring silk rather than escape at once?

I needed silk because there was no ordinary way out of my tower. There were no stairs to descend and no door at the bottom, only my window high above the ground. My hair let someone climb up to me, but our plan for my own descent was a ladder. The prince would bring silk each night, and I would work it into a ladder long enough to reach the ground. Until it was ready, we could not leave as planned.

How did you plan to travel once you reached the ground?

I meant to ride away with the prince on horseback once I reached the ground. First, though, I had to get down from the tower, and that was why we planned the silk ladder. He would bring the silk, and I would make it long enough for the descent. The horse belonged to the next part of our escape, beyond the window and the tower walls. We did not complete that plan before the sorceress discovered our secret.

Did you understand that your innocent question would expose your secret?

No, I did not understand what my question would reveal. I wanted our secret kept from the sorceress, yet I spoke without realizing that my words would expose it. She then cut off my long hair and sent me into the wilderness. Our ladder was not ready, and the escape we had planned never happened in that way. It was an innocent question, but its consequences were terrible: I lost the tower and was separated from the prince.

Who were your companions during your years in the wilderness?

My companions in the wilderness were my two children, a boy and a girl. They were twins, born after the sorceress had sent me away from the tower. I lived with them there during the years when the prince and I were apart. He was wandering without his sight, though I did not share those wanderings with him. At last he heard me singing and found us. The children then went with us when we left the wilderness for his kingdom.

How did you greet the prince when you were reunited?

I welcomed him, and we embraced. We had been apart for years, and it was my singing that led him to me in the wilderness. He had lost his sight after falling among thorns below the tower. When we were together again, my tears fell into his eyes, and he could see once more. Our long separation was over. I was there with our two children, and afterward he took all of us with him to his kingdom.

Where did the prince take you and your children after your reunion?

He took me and our children to his kingdom, where we lived happily. Before that, my twins and I had been living in the wilderness, far from the tower where I had once been confined. The prince found us after hearing my singing, and his sight returned when my tears fell into his eyes. We could leave together at last, though not by the silk ladder we had once planned. Our children came with us into that happier life.