Hello!
Welcome to this episode of Confessions of a Mid-Centurion.
My name is Richard,
And I will be your host this evening.
And it is Monday,
October 6th,
2025,
Out here on the prairies of the United States.
We're still enjoying lovely summer weather.
I guess it's going to break sooner or later,
But not just yet.
It's still very summery here.
And today,
I'm going to read the 12th in our ongoing series of my readings of the original fairy tales and folk tales for the Brothers Grimm,
Going back to the 1800s.
There's 156 of them total.
I'm on number 12.
This is one that's been made popular through Disney and others.
And it's a great little tale.
It's called Rapunzel.
So,
Without further ado,
I continue to bring fairy tales to our all-too-real world of 2025.
And today,
I'm going to read to you Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm.
And here we go.
Once upon a time,
There lived a husband and wife who had been wishing for a child many years.
But it had all been in vain.
And finally,
The woman became pregnant.
Now,
In the back of their house,
The couple had a small window that overlooked a fairy's garden filled with all kinds of flowers and herbs.
But nobody ever dared to enter the fairy's garden.
One day,
However,
When the wife was standing at the window and looking down into the garden,
She noticed a bed of wonderful Rapunzel.
She had a great craving to eat some of this lettuce,
Because Rapunzel was a type of lettuce.
And yet she knew that she couldn't get any,
So she began to waste away and looked wretched.
Her husband eventually became horrified and asked what was ailing her.
If I don't get any of that Rapunzel from the garden behind our house,
I shall have to die,
Dear husband,
I shall have to die.
Now,
Her husband loved her very much and thought,
No matter what it costs,
You are going to get her some Rapunzel.
So one evening,
He quickly climbed over the high wall into the garden,
Grabbed a handful of the Rapunzel lettuce,
And brought it back to his wife.
And then she immediately made a salad and ate it with great zest.
However,
The Rapunzel tasted so good to her,
So very good,
That her craving for it became three times greater by the next day.
And her husband knew that if she was ever going to be satisfied,
He had to climb into the fairy's garden once more.
And so he went over the wall,
Into the garden,
But was extremely terrified when he stood face to face with the fairy,
Who angrily berated him for daring to come into the garden and stealing her Rapunzel lettuce.
He explained himself as best as he could,
By explaining that his wife was pregnant and that it had become too dangerous to deny her the Rapunzel.
All right,
The fairy finally spoke,
I shall permit you to take as much Rapunzel as you like,
But only if you give me the child that your wife is carrying now.
And in his fear,
The man agreed to everything.
So when his wife gave birth,
The fairy appeared at once,
Named the baby girl after the favorite lettuce,
Rapunzel,
And took her away.
And Rapunzel grew to be the most beautiful child under the sun,
But when she turned twelve,
The fairy locked her in a very high tower that had neither doors nor stairs,
Only a little window high above.
And whenever the fairy wanted to enter the tower,
She would stand below and call out,
Rapunzel,
Rapunzel,
Let down your hair.
Now Rapunzel had radiant hair,
As fine as spun gold.
Each time she heard the fairy's voice,
She unpinned her braids and wound them around a hook on the window.
And then she let her hair drop twenty yards,
That's sixty feet,
Folks,
And the fairy would climb up on it.
Now one day,
A young prince went riding through the forest and came upon the tower,
And he looked up and saw a beautiful Rapunzel sitting at the window.
And when he heard her singing with such a sweet voice,
He fell completely in love with her.
However,
Since there were no doors in the tower and no ladder could ever reach her high window,
He fell into despair.
Nevertheless,
He went into the forest every day until one time he saw the fairy,
Who called out,
Rapunzel,
Rapunzel,
Let down your hair.
And as a result,
The prince now knew what kind of ladder he needed to climb up into the tower.
He took careful notes of the words he had to say,
And the next day at dusk,
He went to the tower and called out,
Rapunzel,
Rapunzel,
Let down your hair.
And so she let her hair drop,
And when her braids were at the bottom of the tower,
He tied them around himself,
And the prince climbed up and she pulled him up.
At first Rapunzel was terribly afraid,
But soon the young prince pleased her so much that she agreed to let him in every day and pulled him up into the tower every day.
And thus,
For a while,
They had a very merry time and enjoyed each other's company.
And the fairy didn't become aware of this until one day Rapunzel began talking and said to her,
Oh,
Tell me,
Mother Gothel,
Why are my clothes becoming too tight?
They don't fit me anymore.
Oh,
You godless child,
The fairy replied,
What is this that I am hearing?
And afterwards she immediately realized that she had been betrayed and she became furious.
And then the fairy grabbed Rapunzel's beautiful hair,
Wrapped it around her left hand a few times,
Picked up a pair of scissors with her right hand,
And snip,
Snap,
Snip,
Snap,
Rapunzel's hair was cut off.
Afterward the fairy banished Rapunzel to a desolate land where she had to live in great misery.
And in the course of time she gave birth to twins,
A boy and a girl,
And they,
As you can tell by now,
Were from the prince.
On the same day that the fairy had banished Rapunzel,
She fastened the braids that she had cut off,
Rapunzel's head,
To the hook on the window,
And that evening when the prince came and called out,
Rapunzel,
Rapunzel,
Let down your hair.
She let the braids down,
But when the prince climbed up into the tower,
He was astonished to find the fairy instead of Rapunzel.
Do you know what you did,
You villain?
The angry fairy said.
Because of that Rapunzel is lost to you forever.
And in his despair the prince threw himself from the tower.
He escaped with his life,
But he lost both of his eyes.
And sadly he wandered around in the forest blindly,
Eating nothing but grass and roots,
And did nothing but weep and weep and weep.
Some years later he made his way back to the desolate land where Rapunzel was leading a wretched existence with her children,
His children too.
When he heard her voice,
It sounded familiar at first,
And then he immediately recognized it,
And she recognized him too and embraced him.
Two of her tears fell upon his damaged eyes,
And then his eyes became clear again,
And he could see as usual.
The end of the story of Rapunzel,
Rapunzel and the prince,
Rapunzel and the prince and their two children,
Rapunzel and the prince and their two children and the fairy.
And that's a story about true love,
Folks,
That it will conquer even the worst of adversarial conditions.
So,
This episode of Confessions of a Mid-Centurion,
On this lovely Monday,
October 6th,
2025,
Is going to play itself out.
There you have the fairy tale of Rapunzel.
That one's about true love,
Folks.
True love will conquer all.
I don't think anybody really died in that one.
You know,
That wasn't too bad and too gory.
Thank you,
Brothers Grimm.
And on Friday,
I'm going to read to you The Three Little Men in the Forest and Nasty Flax Spinning.
And then after that,
A week from today,
We'll get into another classic like Rapunzel,
But that'll be Hansel and Gretel.
So,
Thanks for listening.
Hope you enjoyed this fairy tale from this all-too-real world of ours.
That was number 12 in our series of the Brothers Grimm's Original Fairies and Folktales.
In this episode of Confessions of a Mid-Centurion,
The fairy tale of Rapunzel is going to play itself out.
Have a great week,
America,
And all around the world.
17 countries are listening now.
Love to have you all.
Thank you.
I'm taking some risks to connect with you,
Hip.
We don't know how we got on this ship together.
This juggernaut of excess seems a soggy lip joint.
There is no final landing field.
This journey is the point.
There's no grand finale,
Don't you understand?
This ain't no opening number,
And I ain't no headline band.
So go slow,
Slow enough to know that the smallest things are the biggest things,
And this is still not,
This is still not everything.
Oh,
No.
Not everything.
Oh.
The smallest things are the biggest things.
