Hello, German learners.
In this video I will tell you the story of Rapunzel.
Because everyone already knows this story, I have written something special for you.
This version of the fairy tale was written in the preterite tense.
This story has always confused me, because there is a lot that doesn’t make sense in this fairy tale.
Therefore I enriched this story with a bit of sarcasm.
Hopefully you find this version funny and you can learn some German along the way.
Learn German with Fairy Tales: Rapunzel
So, there once was this guy and his wife.
They always wanted to have a child.
Maybe they had too much money and slept too much at night.
I have no idea why, but they wanted one regardless.
They wanted one.
That is the point.
They couldn’t have children, however.
One day, the woman said to her husband that she would like to have some “Rapunzel” (corn salad or lamb’s lettuce).
The neighbor of the couple had a garden.
In the garden was lamb’s lettuce.
There was also probably a grocery store somewhere in the city,
but the man jumped over the fence and started stealing the lamb’s lettuce.
He obviously had no moral compass.
The neighbor came to the man and said, “Hey, you.
What are you doing here?”
The man responded: “Nothing. I am just stealing a little lamb’s lettuce.”
“Oh. Nice.” said the neighbor.
“I will allow that, if you give me your first-born child.”
The man answered “Yeah. Ok. Why not?
I can’t even have children and I want the lamb’s lettuce.”
The man went home like a man who had won the lottery.
I think he skipped home. He was so happy.
The wife of the man ate the lamb’s lettuce like a black hole that eats a planet.
She ate it so fast that a piece of the lamb’s lettuce stuck in her stomach.
In case you didn’t know it already, that is how you get children.
They don’t come from the stork.
They don’t come from God.
They don’t fall out of the sky.
They grow in the stomach of a woman who ate something wrong.
Nine months later the couple got a little girl as a daughter.
One day later the neighbor came to their house.
She said, “Hello.
I didn’t say it before, but I am not just your neighbor, but also a witch.
Give me your child or I will do something bad to you.”
The new parents said, “Why not?
We haven’t wished for anything else in the world other than to have a kid,
but since we have this one, we will gladly give it to you.
Fair is fair.”
The witch promised to love the child as a mother would.
Why wouldn’t you believe a witch?
They are normally such truthful women.
Like a mother the witch took the child, named it Rapunzel
and threw it into a tower without stairs.
I don’t know why or how they built the tower.
Maybe the witch placed the order for the tower when she heard that she would get the child.
Maybe it was always there and she just bought it.
I also don’t know why there weren’t any stairs.
Why couldn’t the witch just lock the door in front of the stairs?
Whatever. Rapunzel had to stay in the tower.
In order to bring Rapunzel food and other things, the witch said,
“Rapunzel. Rapunzel. Let down your hair.”
Then Rapunzel let down her hair,
the witch climbed up the hair and gave the child what it needed.
I don’t know how they did it without ripping the hair out of her skull.
In some versions of this fairy tale Rapunzel wraps her hair around a hook.
Maybe it would be possible then,
but what happens if the hook can’t hold the witch
or it wiggles loose?
How did they accomplish this when the hair wasn’t so long?
What did the witch do then?
Rapunzel wasn’t born with 20 meter-long hair.
It takes time before one has that long of hair.
I have no idea.
That isn’t the point here.
So, the witch climbed up the hair.
That we know.
One time this dude came and saw the witch.
He said to himself, “I can do that too.
Then he called to Rapunzel,
“Hey. Let down your hair.”
Rapunzel said,
“Who are you?”
The man said,
“I am a prince.”
“Then come in.”
Rapunzel let down her hair.
The prince climbed up the hair.
When the prince…
do we really know that this dude was a prince?
He said, “I am a prince.” and Rapunzel believed him?
How dumb is this girl?
Whatever. Rapunzel was beautiful. The prince was handsome.
This is a fairy tale. They both fell in love with each other.
I know what you are thinking. She took the first man that she ever met.
Yes. I thought that too,
but it was “love at first sight” or something.
One time the prince climbed up the hair
and when he was about 100 meters up,
he spotted the witch.
She said, “Aha.
Now you will pay for your sneaking.”
Then she cut the hair from Rapunzel.
The witch watched the day before as the prince climbed up.
She thought he wanted to take Rapunzel out of the tower.
The prince fell to the ground.
As he fell, he thought,
“Hmmm. Maybe I should have built a ladder the last time I was in the tower.
Or I could have taken Rapunzel home earlier.
I could have cut her hair and then tied the hair to the bed.
Then we could have both run away.
Why didn’t I think of that before?
Ouch.”
When he finally fell to the ground, he landed in a thornbush.
The thornbush tore the skin of the prince and stabbed out his eyes.
The prince screamed like in a horror film with a gigantic monster
that ate children and women without ketchup.
With ketchup it would be ok, but without ketchup.
Eww. What a horror.
The prince ran screaming for fear.
He wandered in the desert for ten years.
He ate only sand and lizards.
He ate the lizards on purpose, but the sand accidentally.
You could cook a lizard without fire it was so hot in the desert.
One day the man heard a woman singing.
He thought, “I know that voice.”
Then he called, “I am here.”
Naturally the voice belonged to Rapunzel.
She came to the prince.
When she saw his face, she cried.
I believe he didn’t age well and that’s why she cried.
He got ugly in his old age.
It could also be that she was happy to see him again,
but whatever the reason she was crying,
when the tears landed in the eyes of the man, his eyes were healed.
The man opened his eyes and saw Rapunzel standing before him.
She had two small children with her.
The man said, “Who are they?”
Rapunzel said, “This is your son and your daughter.”
“Oh my goodness.” said the man.
If you want to hear more fairy tales from me,
I have a playlist of them linked in the description.
If you want to learn more about the preterite tense,
I have a video about that here.
That is all for today. Thanks for watching. Until next time. Bye.