Episode 75 – Let Your Hair Down – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 75 Show Notes

Source: European Folklore

This week on MYTH, it’s a dysfunctional Valentine’s Day special for a dysfunctional year. You’ll learn why you should say no to vegetables, what lions are scared of, and how to leave a room with no doors. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll see why you should be careful who you marry. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 75, “Let Down Your Hair”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
The season of love is upon us once more, although it’s hard for me to feel anything but stressed and exhausted after the year we’ve had (and continue to have). It therefore seemed appropriate to cover some famous love stories that are liberally splashed with red blood and human hearts in both the main tale and our Gods and Monsters segment. As a note, the version of the text that I’m using for both stories is The Annotated Brothers Grimm edited by Maria Tatar. First up, it’s a story you’ve almost certainly heard of before – Rapunzel.
The famous version collected by the Brothers Grimm, first published in 1812, is an adaptation of a tale that was written by a number of authors, with the earliest recorded version being the one in Giambattista Basile’s Petrosinella back in 1634. The two major versions share a lot of similarities (naturally), but they are pretty wildly different in tone. The Italian version is older and bawdier, so we’ll start there before diving into the darker, Grimmer depths.
Once upon a time, there lived a woman named Pascadozzia who was very pregnant. Her baby daddy will never make an appearance in the story, so he is presumably not in the picture for unexplained reasons. She looked out the window of her cottage, which just so happened to be next door to the home of an ogress because it’s a fairy tale. Hey, ogres have to live somewhere, right? This particular ogress had a splendid garden, in which she took great pride. Pascadozzia saw a particularly succulent bed of parsley and she developed one hell of a craving for it, to the point where she feared she would faint dead away if she couldn’t munch on that lush parsley right the hell now. I mean, parsley has always been a somewhat forgettable garnish for me but to each their own I guess.
The pregnant lady stared out her window at the garden for some time before convincing herself that it wouldn’t be a big deal if she borrowed some parsley. From the ogress next door. Surely nothing can possibly go wrong. So decided, Pascadozzia snuck out into the garden while the ogress was away and plucked a healthy handful. Later that afternoon, the ogress came home from running whatever errands ogresses have and went to the kitchen to start making soup. As she started cooking, she glanced out into her garden and immediately noticed the missing parsley. “Are you fucking serious? What asshole thought it was a good idea to steal from my garden? I’ll catch whoever it is and teach them not to steal food off of other people’s plates.”
Despite this bold talk, the ogress had better things to do than set traps for herb thieves and so Pascadozzia was able to sneak back into the garden several times when she was once more overcome with an uncontrollable urge for parsley. Eventually, her luck ran out and she ran into the ogress herself one morning while sneaking through the garden to pilfer more plants. “Gotcha, you filthy thief! Do you pay rent for the right to rifle through my garden? You certainly stroll through it boldly enough, like you fucking own the place. I’ll make you pay, and I’m not going to bother sending you to Rome – I’ll take care of your punishment myself.”
Poor pregnant Pascadozzia began to tremble in justified fear, although she maybe should have thought about the consequences of stealing from a goddamned ogre sometime before she got caught. She immediately began to make excuses for her thievery, saying that the devil had tempted her to this sin not because she was starving or gluttonous but because she was pregnant. Sure, blame it on the baby who can’t defend itself. Even better, she claims that she feared her baby would have been born with a crop of parsley on its face if she hadn’t stolen from the ogress and even had the audacity to tell the righteously angry gardener that she should be grateful for not having sore eyes.
The ogress rolled her eyes. “Really? That’s your excuse? Bullshit. No one and nothing forced you to steal from me – that was your choice. In return, I’ll give you a choice – your baby or your life. You can either die right here, right now, or you can promise to give me your baby when it’s born.” Pascadozzia trembled in mounting terror, but she was caught red-handed and she really didn’t want to die, so she vowed to give the ogress her child when it was born. True to her word, the ogress let the pregnant lady go back to her own cottage.
Fast forward to a few months later, and Pascadozzia gives birth to a beautiful baby girl. In a twist of either irony or fate, the mother had a small sprig of parsley clinging to her chest the first time she clasped her newborn baby to her, and it stuck to the infant. Pascadozzia named the little girl Petrosinella, which means ‘parsley’ – hey, nothing that’s happened so far has indicated that this woman is even a little bit creative. Little baby Petrosinella was instantly the love of her mother’s life and the joy of her soul, and so she completely forgot about her solemn vow.
For seven years, the beautiful baby grew into a little girl and so the time came for her to go off to school. Being olden days in a fairy tale kingdom, the little girl walked to and from school through the village all alone. Many times, she would pass the ogress on the street and each time, the ogress would say ‘tell your mother to remember her promise.’ Little Petrosinella would dutifully repeat this message to her mother, who grew more and more irritated by the constant nagging until one day, she furiously replied ‘the next time you see that hateful old woman, and she reminds you of that spiteful promise, you say to her ‘take it!’’
Pascadozzia had naturally enough never told her daughter the story of her mother stealing from the ogress and promising her daughter’s life, so the little girl took her mother’s rant at face value. The next day, when she headed to school as usual, she met the ogress who again asked her to remind her mother of her vow, to which Petrosinella replied ‘my mother said you can take it.’ It’s unclear if the ogress had been unable or simply unwilling to take possession of the little girl without her mother’s acknowledgement of the promise, but having received it, she wasted no time. The ogress seized the surprised child by her hair and dragged her off into the woods.
Terrified into silence by the sudden kidnapping, Petrosinella could only weep helplessly as she vanished into the deepest, darkest heart of the woods where the sun’s rays couldn’t reach. There, the ogress (who was also a powerful witch, even if it hasn’t been mentioned up til now) summoned a tall tower from the stony earth, placed the child inside, and then raised it up high into the air. The tower, being a magical construct, had no door, no stairs, and no ladder. Her only access to the outside world was a little window. The ogress, despite having powerful magic, decided to enter and exit the tower to visit the little child by means of climbing her hair. The story doesn’t say how long it took for Petrosinella’s hair to grow long and strong enough to bear the weight of a fully grown ogress, but maybe the magic of the tower enhanced it somehow.
Either way, years passed with Petrosinella trapped in her magical stone tower in the depths of the dark woods, utterly isolated from the world except for visits from her captor, the ogress (who was at least kind enough to teach the child some of her magical arts). On the plus side, her prison towered so high that it peaked above the forest canopy to let her see the sun. One day, Petrosinella was sitting in her window with her long, lustrous hair spilling down below, staring off into the empty wilderness and daydreaming about half-remembered fantasies of childhood.
For reasons that are not adequately explained, the son of a prince happened to be wandering through the woods on this particular day, and the flashing gold of her luxurious hair caught his eye. He followed the strange sight and soon caught a glimpse of the young woman herself through the branches of the trees. Despite her isolation, Petrosinella had grown into an incredibly beautiful woman and the young man fell instantly and deeply in love with her. He approached the tower and called up to the enchanting beauty above. She, being utterly lonely in her desolate kingdom, was thrilled to have someone new to talk to (and a handsome, charming young man of her own age to boot). She was soon equally besotted with her handsome visitor.
For several days, the young princeling would come by her tower when Petrocinella told him the ogress would not be there to catch them. It’s a very passionate, hormone-fueled Romeo and Juliet-style affair, and they were deeply and utterly in love in only a handful of days. With much blushing and nervous smiles, the young lovers made a plan. That night, when the new moon would play hide and seek with the stars, Petrocinella would slip the ogress some poppy-juice and knock her the fuck out. After that, she would let down her hair for her beloved princeling and bring him up into her tower to get frisky and physical.
That night, Petrocinella did exactly as they had planned, and it worked like a charm. The ogress was out cold by the time that the handsome young princeling showed up that night, and she let down her hair to him when he called up. The brand-new couple wasted no time and quickly got naked and got sexy. They spent the night bumping uglies, doing the nasty, and otherwise fucking all over the tower. As the sun began to light up the eastern sky, the prince left the tower the way he’d come in and headed home. The ogress woke up soon thereafter, refreshed and none the wiser.
Things went so well, and the sex was so good, that the pair repeated this whole sneaky love affair several times. In fact, it probably would have gone on like this for some time if not for one nosy-ass neighbor. This particular woman was an absolutely shameless gossip, and loved to pry into everyone’s business, especially when it didn’t concern her in the least. Somehow, in the course of her nosing about, she found out that the prince was sneaking off to have a torrid tryst with the maiden in the tower and couldn’t wait to rush off and tell the ogress what was going on behind her back. Finding her near the forest tower, the neighbor warned the ogress to be on the lookout for this young man coming to get all sweaty and naked with Petrosinella and, so she heard, that they were even thinking of running off together in May.
The ogress had only ever taken the child from her mother as punishment for her parsley theft, so I’m not entirely clear on why she’s so concerned about this (as there’s no evidence of any kind of adoptive motherly affection growing between them over the years). Maybe she’s just possessive. I dunno. Either way, the ogress thanked the snitch for her information but said there was no need to fear that they would run off together. She had laid a spell on Petrosinella years ago to prevent her from ever leaving her tower unless she carried three gallnuts (a type of growth on an oak tree) that the ogress had ensorcelled and hidden in a rafter above the kitchen. As the young woman had no idea that these gallnuts even existed, there was no chance whatsoever of her running off with her secret lover. As for the prince, she would stop up the road and have a little talk with them in the near future to put an end to this shameless teenage sex.
The ogress, proud of her clever spellwork, never stopped to consider whether it was wise to have this little chat outside Petrosinella’s tower. For her part, Petrosinella had been expecting someone to find out about their torrid affair sooner or later, and had been keeping an ear out for this gossip. She heard everything, including the bit about the magical gallnuts and so, when the prince came to visit as usual that evening, she had him climb up to the rafters to find them. She figured that the spell on them would prevent her from taking them herself, but nothing was stopping her handsome new boyfriend.
The gossipy neighbor had been right about their plans to run off together, as it turned out. The prince had been weaving a rope ladder in preparation for their flight and now, tonight, it was finally ready. Gallnuts in hand, they fastened the ladder in place, scampered down, and raced off towards the city, hand in hand. Unfortunately, there was a small hiccup in their otherwise flawless scheme – that same goddamned neighbor. She saw the young lovers rushing off from the tower and began to scream and shout and generally make a ruckus fit to wake the dead. As intended, it roused the sleeping ogress who immediately went to check on Petrosinella and found an empty room and a rope ladder instead. Guessing what must have happened, she scampered down the ladder herself and rushed off to the city in hot pursuit.
The teens had a head start, but the ogress could outrun a horse when she had reason to, and tonight she felt the need for speed. Glancing over her shoulder, Petrosinella saw her captor rushing towards them and her heart sank like a stone. Their only hope had been to get away before the ogress awoke, and now they were fucked. She clenched her fist in frustration and felt the three little gallnuts still in her hand and she had an idea. The ogress had packed them full of magic – maybe she could use that. The ogress had taught her enough that she hoped she could control these magical items. She cast one of them behind her and, much to her surprise, a Corsican bulldog appeared where the gallnut struck the earth. The beast snarled and charged at the ogress, barking and drooling, jaws agape as though to devour her whole.
The ogress was clever though, and she was prepared for all kinds of magical occurrences, so she had a countermeasure in her pocket – an ordinary hunk of bread. She tossed this to the savage canine who, like most dogs, loved getting treats. He stopped chasing her to devour the bread, tail wagging like mad, and the chase continued. Seeing that the ogress was hot on their heels again, Petrosinella threw the second gallnut behind her. This time, a tawny lion appeared from the dust with an earth-shaking roar. He shook his mane, lashed his tail, and crouched to leap at the oncoming ogress and slaughter her.
Again, the ogress, who is apparently more clever than the devil himself, thought quickly and came up with a counter. She spied a donkey not far from her who was just minding its fucking business, chomping on some grass in a pleasant little meadow, and not hurting anyone. In one swift, gory motion, she flayed the poor animal and ripped its raw, bleeding skin from its flesh. She then wrapped herself in the bloody thing and charged the lion who, apparently, was terrified of donkeys for some fucking reason. I don’t understand how a normal donkey, a prey animal, is supposed to be more terrifying to a goddamned lion than an ogress but apparently old timey Italian donkeys were scary. A variation says that she fed the donkey to the lion but kept its skin as a coat, which makes a little more sense but still not a whole fucking lot. Either way, having beaten a lion with a jackass, the ogress continued her pursuit of the young couple.
She’d lost a little distance on them, so she poured on the speed. Petrosinella and the prince could hear the thunder of her footsteps and see the dust rising behind them, and rightfully assumed she had beaten the lion (though I doubt they guessed how) and was after them again. Sure enough, she soon caught up to them. Afraid that the lion would hunt her down if she was just, you know, a deadly ogress, the old woman was still wrapped in the dead donkey’s skin as she gave chase. Petrosinella played her last hand and threw the third and final gallnut – from it sprang a snarling wolf. Being herself quite clever, the young woman had hurled this nut quite close to the pursuing ogress, which didn’t leave her time to try a new trick.
The enormous wolf, seeing a tasty donkey (and quite reasonably not being afraid of dinner) ate the ogress, disguise and all. The lovers, now freed from any danger, slowed down and continued on to the prince’s kingdom at a more leisurely stroll. His father was more than happy to give his permission to his son to marry the beautiful young woman, and they lived happily ever after.
It’s not hard to see how this much older tale is related to the better-known Rapunzel although there are some significant differences, as we shall see. Mostly, the Grimm Brothers’ version has more violence and less premarital sex (like many of their tales). They do point out that, while the version they went with includes a fairly similar premise to the Petrosinella story, there exists another version that begins with a young woman living with a witch as a roommate. There is a locked door in the house, and the witch has forbidden the young woman to ever use the key to open it. Naturally, she disobeys one day and catches a glimpse of the witch with two huge horns curling out from her skull and is imprisoned in the tower as punishment. Now on to Rapunzel.
Once upon a time, there lived a woman and her husband who had been wishing for a child of their own for many years. Despite a lot of enthusiastic attempts however, they had never managed to actually have a baby. The woman in particular longed to be a mother, and she wished and she prayed that god would grant her heart’s desire.
The window in the back of their home looked out over the most incredible garden they had ever seen, lush and verdant and full of all kinds of beautiful flowers and herbs. The garden was, however, private and protected from hungry thieves by a high wall. The barrier discouraged casual miscreants, but it was the witch who lived in the garden who really kept people away (though an earlier version of their tale had her as a fairy initially). Everyone knew how great and terrible her power was, and no one dared risk getting caught by her. There was simply no telling what awful punishment she might mete out for barging into her home.
One day, the woman was looking out of this window over the garden when she saw a bed of rampion, also known as rapunzel (an edible salad green). As noted by Joyce Thomas, rapunzel is an autogamous plant, which means that it can fertilize itself. If no other plants get it the plant version of pregnant, the stalk will split into two halves that will curl up, resembling coiled braids on a young maiden’s head and thus tying into the theme both of fertility and long braided hair.
This particular bed of rampion (my champion, my favorite for any Into the Woods fans out there) looked so very fresh and green and crisp that she began to develop a hardcore craving for it. I still think it’s kind of an odd obsession to develop out of the blue like this, but at least I can understand wanting a really fresh salad more than wanting a garnish. Day by day, the woman’s desire grew more and more unbearable and she began to positively pine away, growing sickly pale and utterly miserable. Her husband noticed this change in his beloved wife and became quite alarmed. “What ails you, dear wife?” She replied “it’s that damned rampion over in the garden. I’ve been staring at it day after day and I fear that if I don’t have some soon, I will literally die.”
To his credit, the man listened to his wife and decided that if it was rampion she needed, then by god it was rampion she would get. It didn’t seem super likely that she would actually die without it, but this was after all a fairy tale kingdom and stranger shit had happened so there was no sense in taking chances. Besides, in a lot of folk traditions, it was considered extremely dangerous to deny a pregnant woman whatever she was craving, and family would often go to great lengths to get whatever the woman needed lest they lose her, the baby, or both. He would rather get her the rampion no matter the price than risk losing her. Although the story doesn’t say, it’s entirely possible that the woman is pregnant here, and also that this may not be her first pregnancy. Miscarriages, stillbirths, and infant deaths were common, and it would explain what’s about to happen.
That night, the man waited until the sun had set and dusky twilight had crept over the land to sneak out to the garden wall. As quickly and quietly as he could, he clambered up over the high stone, snatched a handful of the witch’s rampion, and then beat a hasty retreat back home. She kissed her husband gratefully, made herself a salad, and then devoured it greedily. It was every bit as lush and delicious as it had looked through the window. Unfortunately, once she had finished the salad, she longed for more of the incredible rampion three times as badly as before.
By the next day, her need was so great that she couldn’t even pretend to hide it from her husband, and he knew that he was going to be heading back into the witch’s garden that night. He couldn’t stand to see his wife suffer, especially when there was something fairly simple he could do to help her. As before, he waited until twilight before scampering over the high garden wall. He landed softly on the ground, stood up, and bit back a scream. Standing directly in front of him, pissed all to hell, was the witch herself. Terror gripped his heart at the sight, and her words were definitely not reassuring.
“You piece of shit! How dare you sneak into my garden and steal my rampion! You will pay for this, you little thief!” The man was caught red-handed and he damn well knew it. “Please have mercy! I was desperate and had no other choice! My wife saw your rampion through our kitchen window and the need for it tore her up so badly that she would die without it. Please, I only came here for love!” The witch was a fairly good judge of people, and the man’s words had the ring of truth. His act of devotion softened her anger somewhat though she still required a measure of justice for his crime. “If what you say is true, then you deserve some mercy. Here’s what’s about to happen: I’m going to let you walk out of here with as much of my rampion as you can carry; in return, you’re going to give me the child that your wife will soon bring into the world. I promise you that the baby will be well taken care of. I will treat it like my very own child, and will ensure that it wants for nothing.” It’s not clear if the woman is visibly pregnant here or if the witch is just magically prescient.
A strange mix of relief and terror washed through the man at this proclamation, but he agreed to the witch’s condition (in part because he had no idea what she might do to him if he tried to refuse, but he doubted it would be pleasant). Sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant (or already was pregnant and just became more pregnant). The witch appeared at their door as soon as the child was born to collect her debt (instead of waiting seven years like in the Italian version). She whisked the beautiful baby girl, who she named Rapunzel after the vegetable that had started this whole affair, off into the night.
Rapunzel grew from an adorable baby into an equally beautiful 12 year old girl. The witch could see that her adopted daughter would soon become one of the most beautiful women in the world. The witch had a definite MO here and, like her garden, she figured that the best way to protect her precious Rapunzel was to put her behind high stone walls. Having learned from her previous misadventure, she went with an even taller stone tower out in the wilderness (away from prying eyes) with no way in or out except for a small window at the very top . Whenever the witch would come to visit her daughter, she would stand beneath the window and call out “Rapunzel, Rapunzel – let down your hair!”
Whether by a quirk of nature or because of the witch’s magic (or maybe both), Rapunzel had long, golden blonde hair that she kept tied up in intricate braids most of the time. In a lot of the old stories, golden hair was both a marker of beauty as well as an outward signifier of inner goodness (and Rapunzel has both in spades). Whenever she heard her mother call out thusly, she would undo her braids, fasten her hair to a sturdy hook beside the window, and drop her golden hair down the 20 ells (about 25 yards) to the ground below. The witch would then scale the hair-rope like something out of the old school Batman tv show (which is pretty impressive for what is usually imagined as an old, wizened woman).
A few years went by in this fashion (which still only makes her maybe 15 or so) before anything out of the ordinary happened. By pure chance, the king’s son was riding through the empty forest all alone and passed near the hidden tower. Rapunzel meanwhile was sitting in her little window and singing a song to herself. The prince heard the lovely melody drifting through the wilderness and, thoroughly enchanted, followed it to the tower.
He was as surprised as anyone to see that here, in the middle of fucking nowhere, stood a tall tower with the most beautiful maiden he had ever seen in his life singing a mesmerizing song. He made up his mind to climb up the tower and introduce himself to this strange lady but, looking around, he could see no way in or up. He spent a good long while searching, but in vain, and he eventually gave up and rode for home. The entire time, the woman’s song echoed in his mind. He couldn’t shake the thoughts of her and so he rode back out into the forest to listen to her again the next day. And the day after that. And so on, each and every day, which is why he happened to be there the next time that the witch came to see Rapunzel.
Hearing someone coming through the woods, he hid himself behind a tree (this was the wilderness after all, and he was here all alone). The witch didn’t expect anyone else to be out here, so she didn’t bother looking around. She went up to the tower and called out for Rapunzel to let down her hair as usual. He watched in amazement as the golden braids tumbled down and the old woman climbed up. “Huh. So that’s how you get up there. I’ll have to try that tomorrow, once that odd old woman is gone.”
The prince came back the next day as dark was falling, made sure he was alone, and then gave it a shot. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel – let down your hair!” Now on the one hand, there’s no way that he sounded anything like the witch. On the other, it’s entirely possible that Rapunzel has never heard another human voice in her life, so it may not even occur to her that it could possibly be anyone but her mother the witch. Either way, she did as asked and let her hair down to the ground, allowing the prince to climb on up. It was dark enough that Rapunzel didn’t realize the person climbing her hair wasn’t the witch until the prince was already in her tower.
Reasonably enough, poor Rapunzel was terrified at the sight of this strange man climbing through her window (especially since he was almost certainly the only man she had ever seen). For his part, the prince was completely understanding of her fear and spoke gently and calmly to her, giving her plenty of space. He told her how he had stumbled across this place and heard her singing, how it had moved his heart so powerfully that he couldn’t get any rest. He simply had to come and see her and speak to her. His heartfelt speech touched Rapunzel’s own tender heart and she found her fear evaporating.
Shockingly, their relationship moved even faster than the Romeo and Juliet nonsense of Petrosinella and her handsome beau – having had exactly one conversation, the prince asked this woman (who may or may not have even told him her name yet) to marry him. Rapunzel was taken aback by this, but she looked at this handsome man who had made a real effort to come see her and had spoken to her in a real way, like no one ever had before. She thought to herself ‘you know, I think he’ll be kinder and more loving to me than old Mother Goethel. Maybe this is a good idea.’ As a note, Mother Goethel (which is also the name they use in Tangled, the Disney version of the story) is a generic name used in Germany at the time – it signified any old woman who served as a godmother type figure. With a smile, she agreed to marry the first and only man she had ever laid eyes on, let alone met and spoken to.
The prince was elated but they both quickly realized that they had no idea how to get Rapunzel out of this tower. She couldn’t exactly climb down her own hair, and she didn’t think she was strong enough to rappel down a plain length of rope the way the prince and the witch both did. After some conversation, she asked her new boyfriend slash fiance to bring her a length of silk every time that he visited her from now on. She would use them to tie a rope ladder together and, when it was long enough, they could flee to safety together and be young and in love and get married.
In the interest of making the process move as swiftly as possible, she asked him to come and visit her every night (since the witch usually came by during the day). Unlike in the Petrosinella version (and the French version, which we haven’t covered), he isn’t coming by to have awkward, sweaty teenage sex but to visit and talk with Rapunzel. Or at least, the story is going to avoid talking about it, but they’re probably doing the nasty during his visits.
The French version is particularly wild at this point. The fairy happens to have a pet parrot, who threatens to reveal the saucy secret of the young woman (named Persinette in this version), who is absolutely fucking the prince. To prevent this, Persinette sews up the mouthy parrot’s asshole (or cloaca, as the case may be), which traumatizes the bird so badly that all it can say from then on is ‘ass stitched’. When the young couple make their escape, the fairy takes a page from her parrot and gives Persinette’s beautiful face the nose of an ass, but eventually has a change of heart and gives her back her beauty.
Things went swimmingly for Rapunzel and her prince (who never seems to get a name in any of the versions), until her naivete betrayed her. One day, as the witch was clambering up Rapunzel’s golden hair, the teen girl asked “why are you so much heavier and harder to pull up into the tower than the prince, Mother Goethel? He’s always up here fast and easy!” In the original Grimm’s version, the question is instead ‘why are my clothes getting so tight and not fitting anymore?’ definitely implying that she and the prince were doing the p in v each night when he visited, but they decided it was inappropriate for children (which is an odd choice considering what’s about to happen) and made the change to the published version.
The witch flew into a jealous, protective rage at this casual confirmation of her worst fears. “What have you done, you wicked child? I thought I had made you safe up here, protected from the rest of the world, but you have betrayed me!” Goethel seized Rapunzel by her flowing golden hair, wrapped it twice around her left hand, pulled out a pair of scissors with her right, and lopped the braids right off with a snip snip snip. Not content with this punishment, and deeply wounded by her daughter’s supposed betrayal, she dragged Rapunzel out of the forest and into a barren desert to live in even greater isolation. The loneliness was so much worse now than it had ever been before, because she had a lover to miss.
And still the witch wasn’t done. Goethel knew good and well that the prince had been the instigator in this whole torrid affair, and it was he who would be the most severely punished for it. She had gotten the whole plan from her daughter before taking her to the desert, and so she made her own plans. Gothel hid inside the tower until nightfall, when the prince, unaware that anything was wrong, came to the tower as usual and called out to his fiance “Rapunzel, Rapunzel – let down your hair!” The witch took the braid that she had cut off her daughter, affixed it to the hook, and tossed it down to the unsuspecting prince. He climbed up into the tower, expecting to be greeted with sighs and kisses, and was met with a very angry witch.
“So you’re the bastard who’s been sneaking into my daughter’s tower at night! You came here thinking you could fetch your darling little wife (although they can’t actually be married since they never left the tower). Too bad that your pretty little bird has flown the coop. Instead of a bird singing you pretty songs, you’ve found that the cat has gotten here first, and she’s going to claw your motherfucking eyes out before she’s done. You’ll never see your precious wife again!” In despair at this sudden turn of events (and the loss of a woman he did actually love very deeply despite barely knowing her), he threw himself out of the tower window to crash to the earth. He survived the fall, but landed in a snarl of brambles full of wicked thorns. Either by chance or due to the witch’s magic (likely given her terrible pronouncements about never seeing Rapunzel again), two thorns pierced his eyes as he fell. They made a bloody ruin of his face and blinded the prince.
Lost and alone in the forest, the prince wandered helplessly. He couldn’t find his way back home, so he survived by eating roots and berries he stumbled across in his blind wandering. The entire time, he wept and wailed and mourned the loss of his beloved Rapunzel, who he figured was lost to him forever. He spent years this way, wild and alone and mad with grief.
In time, his now-aimless wanderings brought him to a desert. On the wind, he heard something – a voice. A very familiar voice. He feared he had finally gone completely mad but, with nothing better to do, he followed the sound of distant singing. Rapunzel (for it was definitely her) looked up at the sound of his shuffling footsteps. Although he couldn’t see it (obviously), she was holding twins in her arms, a boy and a girl. So yeah, they were definitely doing it back in the tower. Incidentally, this is why the Grimm brothers had Goethel make reference to Rapunzel being his wife – they didn’t want the twins to be born out of wedlock, even though they definitely were.
Even ragged and ravaged by his time in the wilds, she knew her beloved on sight and she rushed towards him, weeping with joy at his unbelievable return. She held her beloved prince in her arms and kissed him hard. In doing so, some of her own tears got into the prince’s ruined eyes and suddenly, for no real reason, his vision cleared up and he could see again. Perhaps some remnant of whatever magic had made her hair grow so long before remained and cured his eyes. Who knows. Either way, he was overjoyed to see her and to meet his children. Together, the little family went back to the prince’s kingdom (who had probably assumed he was dead), where he was joyously received with his new wife and children. There, they all lived happily ever after.
There’s no word of what happened to Rapunzel’s birth parents after she gets taken by the witch in the first place, but I hope they had an okay life. There’s also no word of what happens to the witch after she dumps Rapunzel in the desert and abandons her there to suffer. Unlike in the Italian version, there’s no final dishing out of punishment for her cruelty (maybe because she showed mercy at the beginning of the tale). It’s interesting that, unlike in Petrosinella, the couple is separated, but finds each other again in the end through either fate or blind luck. Neither is really looking for the other, and they stumble across each other by happenstance but find each other they do, which means it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s monster is the robber bridegroom.
Like Rapunzel and the ‘maiden in the tower’ trope, the robber bridegroom is one of the more famous manifestations of the ‘woman engaged to a villain’ trope. Also like the main story, the bare bones of the tale are much older than the Grimm Brothers’ version with William Shakespeare alluding to a variant on the story during Much Ado About Nothing. The Robber Bridegroom is one of those stories that has been adapted countless times in endless variations.
Once upon a time, there lived a miller who had a beautiful daughter. He loved his little girl, who was all grown up now, and he wanted to make sure that she would have a good life. Given the time and place, that meant finding her a good marriage. His anxiety over finding his daughter a husband led him to decide that he would give her hand to the first suitable man who asked for it.
I don’t fully understand why he was so anxious about it since, as noted in the very first sentence, his daughter was quite beautiful and the miller, while not rich, is hardly poor. Thus it was hardly a surprise that a suitor came along in short order. The miller didn’t know him personally, but he was handsome and appeared rich (based on his fancy clothes, I’m assuming). The miller didn’t worry about petty details like ‘personality’ or ‘compatibility’ or ‘what does he do for a living’ and promptly promised his daughter’s hand in marriage to this mysterious stranger. The miller’s daughter had better sense. She got some seriously bad vibes off this asshole and, given that she knew precisely dick about him except that he had nice clothes, she didn’t trust him in the least. In fact, every time she laid eyes on him or even thought about him, icy dread churned in her guts.
At some point, her fiance noticed her absence and came to speak to her. “Real talk here. We’ve been engaged for some time now and not once have you come to visit me. What’s up with that?” “Well to start with, I don’t even know where you live.” He considered that. “Fair point. My house is actually deep in the dark forest. You should stop by some time.” “Oooookay. That’s not weird or creepy at all.” She tried to get out of having to journey into the spooky old woods alone to visit someone she didn’t even like or want to spend time with, saying that she worried she would get herself lost trying to find this mysterious house. The bridegroom wouldn’t take no for an answer, however. “I have faith in you. Come by and see me next Sunday. I’ve already got some people coming over for a little dinner party then. To make sure you don’t get lost, I’ll spread ashes along the path through the forest. See you then.”
Sunday came entirely too quickly for the young maiden’s liking. Her vague sense of dread had grown with each passing day, without her being able to put her finger on what exactly was bothering her. When Sunday came, she couldn’t shake the feeling. As a way of trying to make herself feel better, she filled her pockets with peas and lintels to mark her own way through the woods.
She couldn’t put it off any longer without being impolite, so the young woman headed into the forest. The ash-strewn path was easy to find, and she followed it deep into the woods, tossing peas to the right and left with each step to mark the way. She walked for hours, until she was sure she must be near the very heart of the wood, where the thick trees blocked out most of the sunlight, leaving the air gloomy and thick. In a small clearing, she found a house standing all by its lonesome. Unsurprisingly, this house gave off serious ‘horror movie’ vibes, what with being a literal spooky cabin in the woods. She didn’t like the look of it, not one bit, but the trail of ashes had led her here. This was clearly her destination.
Without bothering to knock, the young woman entered the house. It was deathly still and silent inside, without a soul in sight. As she stood there, all alone, a voice called out “Turn back! Turn back, my pretty young bride! In a house of murderers you have arrived!” Her heart leapt into her throat, but she still didn’t see anyone else in the house. Looking around, she saw a small bird in a cage hanging from the wall. As she watched, the bird called out a second time. “Turn back! Turn back, my pretty young bride! In a house of murderers you have arrived!”
You would think that, given her reservations already, a warning from a clearly magical bird would be enough to convince her to get the fuck out of Dodge. Instead, she headed deeper inside the house (because no one ever heeds the first warning in a horror story). She explored every room, but each was sparsely furnished and completely empty of people. No one else seemed to be in the house. After clearing the main floor, she headed down into the cellar. Here at last was another person: a wizened old woman as ancient as the hills themselves, head bobbing up and down.
“Excuse me, old woman. Do you know if my betrothed lives here?” The woman looked up and met the younger woman’s eyes. “Oh, you poor thing! How did you get to this terrible place? This is a den of thieves and murderers. You have been told that you will soon be married, but the only thing that will be celebrated here is a wedding to death.” There’s not really an explanation as to why the old woman is out here in a place she clearly doesn’t want to be associated with. I would assume that she was kidnapped and, being old as shit, can’t make the extremely long and arduous trek back into town on her own.
The woman gestured to a large cauldron bubbling over a fire. “See there? They make me boil the water for their dinner, and tonight? They plan to eat you, my dear. These awful men are cannibals, and they have brought you here not to have dinner but to be dinner.” She sighed. “You’re toast unless I help you, but I really don’t want to have to watch you be butchered tonight.” She led the younger woman to a huge barrel near the wall with a small space behind it. “Hide there and don’t make a peep! Be as quiet and still as a mouse, or they’ll see you and that will be your death. We’ll wait until they fall asleep tonight, and then you can help me escape with you. I’ve been waiting a long time for this chance.”
Almost as soon as the young woman had settled herself, the wicked band of murderers returned home, dragging another poor young woman that they had abducted. The men were drunk and happy, completely ignoring the sobbing woman’s pleas for mercy. Holding her down, they forced three glasses of wine down her throat – one red, one white, and one yellow. After the third, her heart mercifully gave out and the woman died in terror and despair. Smiling wickedly, the men threw her corpse onto the table, ripped her fine clothes from her body, and began to butcher her, sprinkling her raw, bloody flesh with salt and seasonings.
Behind her barrel, the living young woman trembled in terror. Sure, the old woman had warned her that these vile men were cannibals, but there’s a world of difference between hearing that news and watching someone be brutally murdered and cut to pieces. One of the robbers noticed a gold ring shining on the corpse’s finger and tried to pry it off, but it was stuck. Shrugging, he took his axe and hacked her finger off with it, sending the ring flying beyond the firelight. In a stroke of terrible luck, it landed right in the lap of the terrified woman behind the barrel.
The robber took up a candle and went out in search of the missing ring with no luck. One of the other men suggested checking behind the barrel, sending a shock of terror through the poor girl’s heart, but the old woman came to the rescue. “Your meal’s ready. Come and eat! You can always search again tomorrow. It’s not like the finger is going to get up and run away.” The others didn’t want their feast of human flesh to get cold, so they convinced him to listen to the old woman and give up the search for the moment. The men were already drunk, but they were more than happy to get drunker. It wasn’t hard for the old woman to slip a little something in the wine to make sure the murderous men all passed the fuck out, and hard. It wasn’t long before snores filled the creepy death house.
Once she was sure that everyone was out, the young bride slipped out from her hiding place, terrified that someone would wake up as she stepped carefully over their bodies. No one did. She made her way safely upstairs where the old woman was waiting for her. Together, they fled out of that charnel house and out into the dark forest. The wind had long since scattered the ashes from the path. The robber bridegroom had thought ahead in this, and left her a path that would vanish on its own, trapping her with the cannibals. Lucky for the two women, the young bride had herself thought ahead. The peas and lentils had sprouted in the earth where the young woman had scattered them, guiding their steps back to town.
They walked all night and arrived back at civilization in the morning, the younger woman supporting the older when she grew weary. They went straight to the mill, and the young woman told her father everything that had happened. Together, they schemed a clever scheme. The robber bridegroom had never seen his bride at the house in the woods, so they went ahead and set up the wedding as planned, inviting the evil man and all of his equally vile friends. Suspecting nothing, all of them showed up.
At the wedding feast, each of the guests was asked to tell a story to the assembled party. Through it all, the bride sat still and silent, uttering not a word. Her soon-to-be-husband asked her if she had a story. She smiled. “I do indeed. I will tell you about a dream I had.” As the robber bridegroom and his cannibal friends listened with rising concern, she began to relate everything that had happened to her in the cabin in the woods. Several times through the tale, he broke in, arguing ‘My darling, this is only a dream.’ Each time, she continued again without acknowledging that he had ever spoken. She finished with the detail about the ring that had flown from the severed finger of the butchered woman and, to top it all off, she pulled said ring out and brandished it with a dramatic flair.
Realizing that he was fucked, the bridegroom (who had grown paler and paler during this whole recitation) tried to escape, but the assembled guests seized him (and his murderous friends). All of them were dragged before a judge, sentenced to death, and executed for their wicked deeds, leaving the world a much better place. There’s not exactly a happy ending here, but there is a satisfyingly just one (which is almost as good).
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff, whom you can find on fiverr.com.
Next time, we’ll meet back up with Odysseus and his men on the Island of the Sun God. You’ll see that beef is bad for you, that naps are dangerous, and that hanging around all day gets exhausting. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll follow a young man as he sets out to meet his divine daddy to get a gift to make up for all the missed birthdays. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.