Have you ever wanted to do something that you knew you shouldn't do, but you did anyway,
and then you got caught? That's what happens in this Read Aloud with Mr. Paul.
Hi! Welcome to Read Aloud with Mr. Paul. I'm so glad you could be here.
Today we're reading Rapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky.
I got this book from the library; it's a great place to get books.
Look at this beautiful painting on the inside front cover. It shows us where
the story takes place. It looks to me like the Italian countryside long ago.
Here's our title page: Rapunzel, retold and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky. What does
it mean to retell a story? That's right, it means to tell it again,
so Paul O. Zelinsky is telling this story in his own way.
Rapunzel was written down by the Brothers Grimm in 1812,
but there are other versions from France and from Italy, and Paul O.
Zelinsky blended those in with the Brothers Grimm in making his version of the story.
Long ago there lived a man and woman who had no children. As year followed year,
this was their only sorrow. Then one spring, the wife felt her dress growing tight around
her waist. Joyfully she said to her husband, "We are going to have a child at last."
The wife liked to sit by a small window at the back of their house and look down into a beautiful
garden. Flowers grew there, and rare fruits and herbs of every kind. The garden belonged
to a sorceress, who had enclosed it on all sides with a high wall. No one ever dared to enter it.
One day, as the wife sat by the window, her eyes fixed on a bed of rapunzel.
The herb looked so luxuriant, so green and thick and fresh,
that she felt a terrible longing to taste it. Day after day her craving grew,
until she began to suffer from it. She became pale and wretched, and said to her husband,
"If I cannot eat some of the rapunzel from the garden behind our house, I am going to die."
Her husband was alarmed to hear such desperate words. He loved his wife dearly,
and saw no choice but to bring her some of the rapunzel.
Ten times, twenty times he circled the garden wall, but found neither door nor gate. So,
lowering himself through the window at the back of the house,
he climbed down into the sorceress' garden. Quickly he pulled up as
much rapunzel as he could hold and scrambled back up through the window.
His wife made a salad of the roots and greens, and devoured it with a
wild hunger. So intensely delicious was the taste that she nearly fainted as she
ate. Yet the next day her craving for rapunzel was even fiercer than before.
Once again the husband made his way down the wall and into the garden. But this
time as he reached for the rapunzel, the sorceress rose up before him. "How
dare you come here to steal my rapunzel!" she cried. "Oh, it will serve you ill!"
"Have mercy on me," the man begged. "My wife is carrying our child. She
has seen your rapunzel from our window and conceived such a longing for it that
she will die unless she can eat some. What am I to do?"
The sorceress considered his words. "If what you say is true, you may take the
rapunzel that you need. But in return, you must give me the child your wife will bear."
The frightened husband did not know what to say. Rather than see his wife die,
he agreed to the demand. And when the child was born,
the sorceress appeared in the room. She named the baby girl Rapunzel and carried her away.
The sorceress cared for the baby, seeing to her every need. Rapunzel grew to be a
child of rare beauty, with pale skin and an abundance of flowing red-gold hair. When she
reached the age of twelve, the sorceress led her into the forest to live in a high tower.
The tower was a great column rising in the middle of the woods. Although
it looked narrow on the outside, on the inside it was large, with many elegant
rooms. Yet no door led into this tower, and its only window was at the very top.
When the sorceress wished to enter, she stood below the window and called,
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair." Then Rapunzel would unpin her silky braids,
wind them around a hook on the window frame, and let them tumble all the
way to the ground. The sorceress would grab hold of them and hoist herself up.
For years Rapunzel lived alone in her rooms above the treetops, visited only by the sorceress.
Then one day a king's son came riding through the woods. As he neared the tower, he heard a
voice sweeter than any he had ever known. It was Rapunzel, singing to the forest birds. Charmed
by her voice, the prince fell deeply in love. He circled the tower ten times, twenty times, but
found no entrance. "How strange this tower is," he said to himself, and felt he would die of sadness.
He inquired at the nearest houses, where he was told that the tower belonged to a sorceress,
who was keeping a young girl shut away inside. Day after day the prince returned,
hoping to glimpse the girl whose sweet singing had moved him so.
One morning he saw the sorceress appear below the window and call up,
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!"
At once the prince knew how he, too, might enter the tower.
The next evening he stood under the window and called, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your
hair!" Rapunzel's hair came billowing down. The king's son took hold of it and pulled himself up.
"Heaven preserve me!" cried Rapunzel when the prince stepped through the window,
for she had never set eyes on a man before. But he began to
speak to her in such a friendly way that her fear was soon gone.
"Your singing was so beautiful," the prince told her, "that I knew I must see your face,
or my heart could have no peace." Rapunzel saw that he was young and handsome; in her own heart
she felt a happiness she had never known. And when the prince, grown bold, proposed to marry her then
and there, she consented. They held a ceremony in the tower, and every evening after that,
he returned. The sorceress, who came only by day, knew nothing of his visits.
One day when the sorceress entered the tower, Rapunzel said, "If you please, Stepmother, help
me with my dress. It is growing so tight around my waist, it doesn't want to fit me anymore."
Instantly the sorceress understood what Rapunzel did not. "Oh,
you wicked child!" she shrieked. "What do I hear you say? I thought I had kept you safe,
away from the whole world, but you have betrayed me!"
In a rage, she seized the braids and coils of Rapunzel's silky hair and sheared them off.
Then she sent the miserable girl to a wild country, to live alone with no one to care
for her. After some months in the wilderness, Rapunzel gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl.
Once the sorceress had cast Rapunzel out of the tower,
she gathered the cutoff hair and fastened it to the window-hook.
That evening, when the prince called up, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!"
she let the hair cascade down. The poor prince pulled himself up to the window,
only to be confronted by the sorceress, her eyes wild at fury. "So you have come to fetch your
dearest darling?" she cried. "Well, you shall not see her again—Rapunzel is lost to you forever!"
Struck through with grief, the prince let go of the braids, and he plummeted to the ground.
Although the fall should have killed him, the prince lived. But his eyes were hurt;
he could no longer see. Wretched and blind, he stumbled from place to place,
eating nothing but roots and berries, thinking of nothing but the loss of his beloved wife.
After a year of wandering in such misery, he came into the same wilderness where Rapunzel
was living with her children. There one day he heard a voice so dear to him that
he rushed toward it. Rapunzel saw him and opened her arms to him, weeping.
As Rapunzel embraced the prince, two of her tears fell into his eyes. Suddenly
his vision grew clear; once again the prince could see.
He gazed at Rapunzel and at their two beautiful children. He looked up at the hills beyond the
rocky landscape and knew that he was not lost. The prince led his family
out of the wilderness toward his kingdom, where they were received with great joy.
There they lived a long life, happy and content.
What do you notice about this story?
I notice that Rapunzel's mother, when she's pregnant, is filled with such
desire for that herb, rapunzel, that she sends her husband out there to steal it,
and he agrees to do it. The temptation to eat that herb is so strong that it
overcomes their good sense not to steal, and certainly not to steal from a sorceress.
I also notice that the sorceress gives in to a temptation of her own;
she wants to try and protect Rapunzel from the natural pain that comes from
growing up. It's not possible. It's certainly not reasonable to try and
protect a child from every little shock, every little pain that life can bring,
and to lock that child away in a tower—that's just not the right thing to do, either.
Also the prince and Rapunzel give in to a certain temptation of their own when
they get married before they figure out a way to get Rapunzel out of the tower,
which seems to me like the more important thing to do first.
Finally, everyone suffers in this story for giving in to their temptation. Rapunzel's
parents suffer by losing their daughter, the sorceress also suffers by losing Rapunzel,
whom she cares about, and Rapunzel and the prince certainly suffer,
in the time they spend in the wilderness; though I am happy to say that the prince
and Rapunzel—their suffering is over, when they are reunited at the end.
Thank you for joining me for Read Aloud with Mr. Paul. Until next time,
discover the wonder in a book—pick one up, take a look!
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