Once upon a time there lived a husband and wife; they had long wanted to have a child, but he was not there; and finally, the wife had hope that the merciful Lord would fulfill her desire.

And they had a small window in the hillock, from there they could see a magnificent garden, where many beautiful flowers and all kinds of greenery grew. But the garden was surrounded by a high fence, and no one dared to enter it, since this garden belonged to one sorceress; she had great power, and everyone in the world was afraid of her.

Once the wife was standing at the window, she looked into the garden and saw a garden bed, and the most beautiful rapunzel grew on it;

he looked so fresh and so green that she longed to taste this rapunzel. This desire grew in her every day, but since she knew that it was impossible for her to get it, she became completely thin, turned pale and looked unhappy. The husband was frightened and asked:

- What do you miss, my little wife?

Oh, - she says, - if I don’t get a green rapunzel from that garden behind our house and don’t taste it, then there’s only one thing left for me - to die.

Her husband loved her very much and thought: “If my wife has to die from this, then I will get Rapunzel for her, no matter what it costs me.”

And so, at dusk, he climbed over the stone fence into the garden of the sorceress, hurriedly picked a whole handful of green rapunzel and brought it to his wife.

She immediately made herself a salad out of it and ate it greedily. And she liked this salad so much, it seemed so tasty to her, that the next day she had a desire three times greater than before. And she could not find peace until her husband agreed to climb into the garden again.

He made his way there at dusk, climbed through a stone fence, but was very frightened when he saw a sorceress in front of him.

How dare you climb into my garden, - she said, looking at him angrily, - and steal from me, like a thief, my green Rapunzel? You will feel bad for this.

Ah,” he replied, “forgive me, because I decided on this out of necessity: my wife saw your green rapunzel from the window and felt such a passion for him that she would probably die if she hadn’t tasted it.

The witch's anger subsided a little, and she said to him:

If it is true what you say, then I will allow you to recruit as many Rapunzel as you wish, but on one condition: you will have to give me the child that will be born to your wife. He will be fine with me, I will take care of him like a mother.

And out of fear, he agreed to everything. When the time came for the wife to give birth and she gave birth to a daughter, the sorceress immediately appeared, named the child Rapunzel and took him with her.

Rapunzel became the most beautiful girl in the world .

When she was twelve years old, the sorceress locked her in a tower that was in the forest; there were no doors or stairs in that tower, only at the very top of it there was a small window.

When the witch wanted to climb the tower, she stood at the bottom and shouted:

Get your duffs down.

And Rapunzel had long beautiful hair, thin, as if made of golden yarn. She hears the voice of the sorceress, unravels her braids, ties them up to the window hook, and her hair falls as much as twenty arshins down - and then the sorceress, clinging to them, climbs up.

Several years passed, and the king's son happened to ride on a horse through the forest where the tower stood.

Suddenly he heard singing, and it was so pleasant that he stopped and began to listen. It was Rapunzel who sang a song with her wonderful voice, while she was alone. The prince wanted to climb up, and he began to look for the entrance to the tower, but it was impossible to find it. He went home, but the singing sunk into his soul so much that every day he went to the forest and listened to it.

Once he stood behind a tree and saw the sorceress appear, and heard her cry:

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, wake up

Get your pigtails down!

Rapunzel lowered her braids down, and the sorceress climbed up to her.

“If this is the ladder that climbs up, then I would like to try my luck one day,” and the next day, when it was already getting dark, the prince drove up to the tower and shouted:

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, wake up

Get your pigtails down!

And immediately the hair fell down, and the prince climbed up.

Rapunzel, seeing that a man she had never seen entered her, at first was very frightened. But the prince spoke kindly to her and said that his heart was so touched by her singing and he had no rest anywhere, and now he decided to see her without fail.

Then Rapunzel stopped being afraid, and when he asked her if she agreed to marry him - and he was young and handsome - she thought: "He will love me more than the old Frau Gothel," and gave her consent and held out her hand to him. She said:

I will gladly go with you, but I do not know how to go downstairs. When you come to me, take a piece of silk with you every time; I will weave a ladder out of it, and when it is ready, I will go down and you will take me away on your horse.

They agreed that he would come to her in the evenings, since the old woman would come during the day. The sorceress did not notice anything until one day Rapunzel spoke to her and said:

Tell me, Frau Gothel, why is it harder for me to drag you upstairs than the young prince? He rises to me in an instant.

- Oh, you nasty girl! - shouted the sorceress. - What do I hear? I thought that I hid you from everyone, but you still deceived me! - And in a rage she grabbed Rapunzel's beautiful hair, wrapped it several times around her left hand, and grabbed the scissors with her right hand and - chik-chik! - cut them off, and wonderful braids lay on the ground.

And the sorceress was so ruthless that she led poor Rapunzel into a deaf thicket; and she had to live there in great poverty and grief.

And on the very same day that she drove Rapunzel away, in the evening she tied the cut-off braids to the window hook, and when the prince appeared and shouted:

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, wake up

Get your pigtails down! -

then the witch let her hair down.

And the prince climbed up, but did not find his beloved Rapunzel there, but saw a sorceress. She looked at him with her angry, stinging eyes.

Aha! she shouted mockingly. - You want to take away your beloved, but the beautiful bird is no longer in the nest, and she no longer sings. The cat took it away, and it will scratch out your eyes too. You lost Rapunzel forever, you will never see her again!

The prince was beside himself with grief and in despair jumped out of the tower; he managed to save his life, but the prickly thorns of the bush, on which he fell, gouged out his eyes. And he wandered blindly through the forest, eating only roots and berries, and all the time he grieved and wept for his beloved wife, who had been lost to him.

So he wandered for several years in grief and sadness, and finally went into a thick thicket where Rapunzel lived, in poverty, along with her twin children, whom she gave birth to, with a boy and a girl.

But two tears fell into his eyes, and he regained his sight and began to see as before. And he brought her to his kingdom, where they welcomed him with joy, and they lived for many, many years in happiness and contentment.