Time for an uplifting story.
Once upon a time a story was written. The year was 1812, or 1790, or 1698, or 1634, depending on your source. Since all the people who wrote the story are obviously long gone, why would I name them? Maybe I’ll tell you later.*
I’m retelling it now in 2022 because over 200 years between versions is way too long for such a happy story to languish.
Here’s how it goes:
A good looking guy, who was also lucky enough to be born to royalty, a prince in fact, took notice of a local girl who lived in a tower. A tower? Yeah, but not a “uuge”, awesome one like today.
Normally I’d say she had a bad real estate agent but as it turned out she lived there rent free. Also turns out the landlord was her father. As we shall see, a man with no sense of humor.
The prince was a horn dog (sound familiar?) and his plans included seduction and other inappropriate behavior which could damage her reputation, not to mention her father’s honor. Without the benefit of a ladder, he couldn’t stop thinking about how to scale the wall of the tower to reach the object of his fantasy.
She must have been up there for quite a while without the benefit of a trip to “Great Clips” so her hair had grown long. Extraordinarily long. He was desperate to reach her, and she didn’t object much, so he suggested she let her hair down so he could climb up.
He did, she helped haul him up, and they had a passionate affair of short duration. He forgot to call her the next day. Must’ve lost her cell number.
Anyway, she got knocked up and when her father found out he cut her head off.
The end.
Don’t be mad at me for the story. This version of the story was written by two guys named Grimm. And that’s no fairy tale. Bizarre stories seem to have been genetic since they were brothers. The story has been rewritten a bunch of times so it may have been edited a time or two. They weren’t the only ones who did that.
As you have already figured out, the commonly used name of the tale is Rapunzel. The Disney Company decided it would be cool to make a few hundred million dollars by rewriting it in 2010 so they could sell it as kid friendly. There was a pretty girl, a handsome prince, a witch, and other cool stuff in it. Your granddaughters are probably obsessed with it. A few others changed the details before that, but you get the idea.
The Grimm brothers wrote a whole bunch of other grim tales and compiled them into “Children’s and Household Tales” in 1812. Apparently children were not considered as delicate back then as they are now.
Like all of my stories, this one is mostly, probably correct. Like everyone else involved, I made some of it up and changed what I felt like changing to make it cheeky.
Editors note: The inspiration for this story came from a recent history post on the excellent Substack newsletter, “Hidden History” written by Ravi Rajan.
* In case you are bored, some of the information and the names of some of the authors of the original story can be found on Wikipedia.
Wonderfully told Grant.Thanks for the shoutout
Jacob Grimm was a brilliant linguist. We have much to thank him for his study of the development and history of Germanic languages, sound shifts, and more. Those interested might consider listening to the History of English podcast, which covers Grimm’s contributions to our understanding of old English.