Brick Fairy Tales: Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Hansel and Gretel, and More (11 page)

Afterwards as they came back, the elder was at the left, and the younger at the right,

and then the pigeons pecked out the other eye of each.

And thus, for their wickedness and falsehood, they were punished with blindness as long as they lived.

Rapunzel

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 aileth thee, 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 thy wife die, bring her some of the rampion thyself, let it cost thee what it will.”