He waited outside the tower and listened to Rapunzel and the witch’s conversation. It was the same as it was every day: Rapunzel’s requests to leave the tower were dismissed by the witch, who told her how ungrateful she was for asking.

The young man was compelled to save poor Rapunzel from the tower and the witch. The next day he returned to the tower with a plan to meet her. He waited for the witch to arrive and hid from view as she called up to the tower:

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”

The hair was lowered and the witch climbed it to the window. The witch and the young woman had the same conversation as always, and when they had finished, the witch climbed down Rapunzel’s hair and left the tower for her home in the village.

The young man waited until he was certain the witch was gone and then called up to the tower himself:

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”

The witch had never visited Rapunzel twice in one day. Fearing something was wrong, Rapunzel quickly lowered her hair for the caller. She never had any other guests besides the witch, so it gave her quite a scare to see the young man climb through the window.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Don’t worry, I will not harm you,” he said. “Forgive me, but I saw you in this tower yesterday, and I had to meet you.”

“Where are you from?” Rapunzel asked.

“The village at the edge of the woods,” he said.

“There’s a village at the edge of the woods?” Rapunzel said, and her eyes grew wide at the idea. “Please, you must tell me all about it!”

The young man told Rapunzel everything there was to know about his village. He told her about all the roads, shops, markets, houses, and schools. He told her about his family and his friends and how they treated one another so differently than the witch treated her.

“How wonderful,” Rapunzel said with a dreamy sigh.

“There’s a lot more I’d like to tell you,” the young man said. “May I come back and visit you again?”

“I would love that,” Rapunzel said.

Every day from then on, once the witch had come and gone, the young man would climb up Rapunzel’s hair and visit her in the tower. Each day he would bring new things to show her about the world outside.

He showed her maps of his village, maps of the forest, maps of the kingdom, and maps of the known world. He brought her books and scrolls so she could read about all the places and people she never knew existed.

“If only I could leave this tower and see the world with my own eyes,” Rapunzel said desperately.

“I’ll help you leave the tower so we can travel the world together,” the young man said.

“But what about my mother?” Rapunzel asked. “She’d be heartbroken if I left.”

“A real mother doesn’t keep her child locked away in a tower,” he said. “A real mother would want you to leave and have experiences. She’d want you to live, learn, and love.”

And with that said, the young man kissed Rapunzel. For the first time in her life, Rapunzel felt like a person and not a prisoner. She decided to leave the tower, even if it was the last thing she did.

“How will I get down without Mother noticing?” she said.

“Leave it to me,” the young man said. “I’ll come up with something so the witch will never be the wiser.”

From that day forward, when the young man visited the tower he brought Rapunzel handfuls of twine the same color as her hair. She would twist the twine into rope and then braid the rope into her hair, so the witch never found it. Once the rope was as long as her hair, Rapunzel planned to use it to climb down from the tower and be free.

At the time, it seemed like the perfect plan. The longer the rope became, the more Rapunzel’s and the young man’s excitement grew. However, their excitement made them careless, and one afternoon the young man foolishly left one of his maps behind.

The witch found the map and screamed at Rapunzel.

“Tell me who’s been visiting you!” she demanded.

“No,” Rapunzel said with a quivering jaw.

“Tell me now, or I will curse them when I find out who they are!” the witch warned.

“Just a young man from the village at the edge of the woods,” Rapunzel said. “Is it so wrong to have a friend?”

Rapunzel burst into tears. The witch had never seen her so sad before. It was the first time the witch felt sorry for the girl, and she kneeled down to comfort her. However, all the witch’s guilt quickly diminished when she stroked Rapunzel’s head and found the rope braided into her hair.

“You horrible, ungrateful girl!” the witch yelled. “After everything I’ve done for you, you were going to leave the tower and run off with that scoundrel! I’ll make sure you never see each other again!”

The witch left the tower and returned with an axe and a rope ladder. She chopped off all of Rapunzel’s hair with the axe and then forced her down the ladder. The witch dragged the poor girl into the forest and abandoned her at a spot so deep in the woods, she would never find her way back.

The witch returned to the tower, discarded the ladder and the axe in the shrubbery below, and waited for the young man to arrive the next day. For all he knew, Rapunzel would be freed soon, so there was an extra bounce in his step. He stood at the base of the tower and called up:

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”

The witch let down Rapunzel’s hair for the young man to climb. When he reached the very top of the tower, she pulled it out of his hands and knocked him off the window ledge.

The thornbush below broke his fall, but the thorns pierced his eyes and blinded him. The young man wandered into the wilderness, not knowing in which direction he was headed.

For months and months, the young man wandered the forest blindly. Every day he called for help until his voice grew hoarse, but no one ever heard him.

Miraculously, the young man and Rapunzel found each other in the woods, but she wasn’t alone. Since they had been separated, Rapunzel had given birth to twins.

“You’re a father,” she told him. “We can be a family now.”

The young man cried tears of both joy and pain. He was happy to have a family, but he knew he would never lay eyes on them. Rapunzel rested his head in her lap and cried with him. Her tears rolled down her face and fell into his eyes.

Once again, the magic of the rapunzel lettuce proved itself useful, for Rapunzel’s tears gave the young man back his sight. The first thing he saw after regaining his vision was his beautiful children.

Now able to recognize the forest around them, the young man guided Rapunzel and their children back to the village from which he had come. Once he was reunited with his old family, he and Rapunzel were married and continued a family of their own.

As for the witch, ironically she had also been blinded, but by anger. She was so set on punishing Rapunzel and the young man for betraying her that she had forgotten to supply herself with a way down from the tower. The witch was trapped inside it for years and years, until she died.

Living a life free of the witch, surrounded by friends and family in homes that had many doors and windows, made it easy for Rapunzel and the young man to have a happily-ever-after.

The End