Reading Notes: Brothers Grimm (LibriVox), Part A

Rapunzel

from Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm

translated by Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes

I love the story of Rapunzel. From what I know of the original fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, they are not as happy or comedic as the Disney versions. So as I was reading, I knew there was going to be some things that I was going to be kind of shocked about.

The Disney version of Rapunzel is called Tangled and so I was comparing and contrasting to that whilst reading this story.

The biggest difference in the Brothers Grimm version and the Disney version is the Prince/Flynn Rider. 

• In the Brothers Grimm version, the guy who "saves" Rapunzel is the prince who hears singing often when he's in the forest. He sees the tower but doesn't know how to get up until he sees Gothel call out to Rapunzel to let down her hair.
• In the Disney version, the guy who "saves" her is Flynn Rider/Eugene, who is a thief. He actually steals Rapunzel's crown the palace but doesn't know that the girl in the tower is actually Rapunzel, the princess that has been missing. 
• The Prince eventually gets up there and almost immediately asks her to marry him. Rapunzel agrees but doesn't know how to get down so decides to make a silk ladder so she can get down from the tower one day. So he leaves and decides to come see her every evening.
• In Tangled, Flynn and Rapunzel both escape the castle using her hair to get down.

Another other differences is how the Prince is scared off by Gothel and while he is escaping, he falls into thorns which pierce his eyes and cause him to go blind. And Gothel also casts out Rapunzel from the tower. And the biggest one at the end is when Rapunzel is in the desert and she has twins, and one day the prince just stumbles upon them and they reunite.

So it's still a happy ending, but still pretty crazy how kind of dark the Brothers Grimm versions of these fairytales can be.

Rapunzel and Flynn from Disney's Tangled. Source: NPR.