In this lesson, you can listen to an audio recording of Rapunzel, by the Brothers Grimm. Originally published in 1812, this is the classic story of the girl with the beautiful voice and extremely long hair who is locked in a tower by an evil enchantress. This story can be found in Grimm’s Fairy Tales on Project Gutenberg. The story is easy to read and suitable for English learning beginners.
This video features on-screen subtitles perfectly synced with the narration, making it an excellent resource for English listening practice.
The History: More Than a Fairy Tale
While most modern audiences know Rapunzel through animated films, the version recorded by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in 1812 is significantly more atmospheric (and a bit darker).
The story wasn’t originally “German” in origin; the Grimms adapted it from a 1790 story by Friedrich Schulz, which itself was based on an even older French tale called Persinette.
Key Differences for English Learners:
- The Price of the Plant: The name “Rapunzel” refers to a specific salad green (often called lamb’s lettuce) that the mother craves. In the original folklore, the tragedy begins not with a magical flower, but with a simple botanical theft.
- The Enchantress vs. The Witch: Unlike the evil queen in Snow White, the antagonist here, Mother Gothel, is described as an “enchantress” (a powerful magic user) rather than a simple witch.
- A Story of Exile: The Grimm version focuses heavily on the theme of isolation. The tower has neither stairs nor doors, representing a complete “sequestering” from society. To sequester someone or something means not only to hide or separate it, but to set it apart. In the story, Rapunzel is first sequestered in a high tower, and later in a desert.
Vocabulary Spotlight: Enchantments and Exile
The Brothers Grimm used specific, evocative language to create the “fairy tale” atmosphere. Here are the key terms for this lesson:
Describing the Characters
- Enchantress
- Meaning: A woman who uses magic or sorcery. In this story, Mother Gothel is an enchantress rather than a typical “witch.”
- In vain
- Meaning: Without success. The couple wished “in vain” for a child for many years before Rapunzel was born.
Nature and the Garden
- Rampion (Rapunzel)
- Meaning: A European plant with a white edible root and leaves used in salads. The entire story begins because of a craving for this specific plant!
- Splendid
- Meaning: Magnificent, very impressive, or beautiful.
The Turning Points
- Sequestered
- Meaning: To be isolated or hidden away from others.
- In the story: Rapunzel is sequestered first in the high tower, and later in the desert.
- Tresses
- Meaning: Long locks of a woman’s hair. This is a more poetic way of saying “hair” or “braids.”
- Resound
- Meaning: To fill a place with sound; to echo. Rapunzel’s “sweet voice resounded” through the forest, which is how the Prince found her.
Idioms & Phrases in Rapunzel
The language in this story is quite poetic. Here are the common English idioms and expressions used in the text:
- To Pine Away
- Meaning: To become very thin and weak because of sadness or a broken heart.
- In the story: The mother “pined away” because she wanted the rampion from the garden so badly.
- With Much Relish
- Meaning: To do something with great enjoyment or satisfaction.
- In the story: She ate the salad “with much relish.” (Note: In modern English, “relish” is also a condiment, but here it means enjoyment. This idioms is still heard today, although it is becoming archaic). Relish is often used to mean “greatly enjoy something” modern English such as, “The actor relished the spotlight.”
- To Make Up One’s Mind
- Meaning: To make a final decision.
- In the story: The husband “made up his mind” to climb the wall into the enchantress’s garden. This is a quite common modern idiom!
- Under One Condition
- Meaning: Only if a specific rule or requirement is met.
- In the story: The enchantress allows the man to take the rampion, saying “I make only once condition”: he must give her the child. The modern equivalent is “under one condition.”
- Beneath the Sun
- Meaning: Anywhere in the world; on the entire earth.
- In the story: Rapunzel became the most beautiful child “beneath the sun.”
- To Be Stirred
- Meaning: To be deeply affected by a strong emotion (like love or pity).
- In the story: The Prince’s “heart had been so stirred” by Rapunzel’s singing.
- Lost to Someone
- Meaning: To be gone forever from someone’s life; no longer available to them.
- In the story: The enchantress tells the Prince that Rapunzel is “lost to him” forever.
Grammar Spotlight: “Which” vs. “That”
While listening to this story, you will notice the narrator uses the word which in ways that modern English usually avoids. In the 19th century, “which” was used as a “catch-all” word, but today we have stricter rules.
1. Identifying a Specific Thing (Use “That”)
In modern English, we use that to identify a specific person or thing being talked about.
- The Text: “…give me the child which your wife will bring into the world.”
- Modern English: “…give me the child that your wife will bring…”
- The Text: “…shut her into a tower, which lay in a forest…”
- Modern English: “…shut her into a tower that lay in a forest…”
2. Extra Information (Use “Which”)
Today, we only use which to add “extra” information that isn’t required to identify the object, and we almost always put a comma before it.
- The Text: “Then he heard a song, which was so charming…”
- Modern English: “Then he heard a song that was so charming…” (Because the charm is what identifies the specific song he’s listening to).
Notice that the phrases “that your wife will bring into the world” and “tower that lay in a forest” are essential for identifying the specific child or tower. Thus, “that” is correct.
Final Grammar Tip: If you can’t remove the description without the sentence losing its meaning, use that. If the description is just a “bonus” detail, use which.
Listening Challenge: Test Your Knowledge
How well did you follow the story? Answer these questions to test your listening comprehension and your understanding of the idioms used in the text.
1. Why did the mother “pine away” at the beginning of the story?
- A) She was lost in the forest.
- B) She wanted the rampion from the enchantress’s garden.
- C) She was sad about the Prince leaving.
2. What does it mean that the husband “made up his mind” to climb the wall?
- A) He forgot where he was going.
- B) He changed his opinion.
- C) He reached a final decision to take the risk.
3. The enchantress allowed the man to take the plants “under one condition.” What was it?
- A) He had to pay her in gold.
- B) He had to give her his first-born child.
- C) He had to stay in the garden forever.
4. When the narrator says the enchantress “which was very angry,” what is the modern grammatical correction?
- A) The enchantress, who was very angry.
- B) The enchantress, that was very angry.
- C) The enchantress, it was very angry.
5. True or False: To eat something “with much relish” means you are putting a whole lot of pickle relish on your food.
There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a child. At length the woman hoped that God was about to grant her desire.
These people had a little window at the back of their house from which a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, who had great power and was dreaded by all the world.
One day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion (rapunzel), and it looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, and had the greatest desire to eat some.
This desire increased every day, and as she knew that she could not get any of it, she quite pined away, and looked pale and miserable. Then her husband was alarmed, and asked, “What ails you, dear wife?” “Ah,” she replied, “if I can’t get some of the rampion which is in the garden behind our house, to eat, I shall die.”
The man, who loved her, thought, “Sooner than let your wife die, bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost you what it will.”
In the twilight of evening, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it to his wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it with much relish.
She, however, liked it so much, so very much, that the next day she longed for it three times as much as before.
If he was to have any rest, her husband must once more descend into the garden. In the gloom of evening, therefore, he let himself down again; but when he had clambered down the wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before him.
“How can you dare,” said she with angry look, “to descend into my garden and steal my rampion like a thief? You shall suffer for it!”
“Ah,” answered he, “let mercy take the place of justice. I only made up my mind to do it out of necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she had not got some to eat.”
Then the enchantress allowed her anger to be softened, and said to him, “If the case be as you say, I will allow you to take away with you as much rampion as you will, only I make one condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into the world; it shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a mother.”
The man in his terror consented to everything, and when the little one came to them, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the child the name of Rapunzel, and took it away with her.
Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child beneath the sun. When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath this, and cried,
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let down your hair to me.”
Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses, wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair fell twenty yards down, and the enchantress climbed up by it.
After a year or two, it came to pass that the King’s son rode through the forest and went by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so charming that he stood still and listened.
This was Rapunzel, who in her solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The King’s son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the tower, but none was to be found. He rode home, but the singing had so deeply touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest and listened to it. Once when he was thus standing behind a tree, he saw that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she cried,
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair.”
Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress climbed up to her. “If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I will for once try my fortune,” said he, and the next day, when it began to grow dark, he went to the tower and cried.
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair.”
Immediately the hair fell down, and the King’s son climbed up.
At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man such as her eyes had never yet beheld came to her; but the King’s son began to talk to her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to see her.
Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she would take him for a husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought, “He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does;” and she said yes, and laid her hand in his.
She said, “I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse.” They agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for the old woman came by day.
The enchantress remarked nothing of this, until once Rapunzel said to her, “Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young King’s son–he is with me in a moment.”
“Ah! you wicked child,” cried the enchantress, “what do I hear you say! I thought I had separated you from all the world, and yet you have deceived me!”
In her anger she clutched Rapunzel’s beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand, seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snip, they were cut off, and the lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert, where she had to live in great grief and misery.
On the same day, however, that she cast out Rapunzel, the enchantress in the evening fastened the braids of hair which she had cut off to the hook of the window, and when the King’s son came and cried,
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair,”
She let the hair down. The King’s son ascended, but he did not find his dearest Rapunzel above, but the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks. “Aha!” she cried mockingly. “You would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her more.”
The King’s son was beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes.
Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries, and did nothing but lament and weep over the loss of his dearest wife.
Thus he roamed about I in misery for some years, and at length came to the desert where Rapunzel lived in wretchedness.
He heard a voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he went towards it, and when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck and wept. Two of her tears wetted his eyes, and they grew clear again, and he could see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom, where he was joyfully received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and contented.