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ArchivesMore than you ever wanted to know about Rapunzel
in reply to a message by mike crowe
First of all, that's not the way the story goes. This is the way it goes:
A poor couple longs for a child, and finally the wife becomes pregnant. Unfortunately, she then happens to look out her window one day and sees a bed of rampion/rapunzel growing in the next door neighbour's garden. The next door neighbour is a witch/sorceress. The wife develops a craving for the rampion, so the husband (eventually) goes and steals some for her. The witch catches the husband the second time he steals rampion, and in payment for the stolen rampion, the couple must give up the child the wife is pregnant with. The baby is named Rapunzel for this reason. When Rapunzel turns 12, the witch/adoptive mother locks her up in the tower, until one day a prince comes by. Rapunzel lets him climb up her hair, they talk, they get engaged, ect. But the witch finds out about this, and takes Rapunzel to a desert/forest and leaves her there. She also blinds the prince. Eventually, the blind prince finds Rapunzel again, and Rapunzel heals his eyesight with her magical tears.
In the original German Rapunzel version of the story, Rapunzel gives birth to twins while in the desert/forest, but this is often edited out because of *gasp* implied premarital sex.
However, the story is much old than the current Grimm/German Rapunzel version. (The following is from SurLaLune Fairy Tales. http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/rapunzel/history.html)
The first literary version was Italian, written by Giambattista Basile in 1637. The story was titled "Pentamerone". The girl was named Petrosinella, after "petrosine", or parsley.
Sixty years later in 1697, Charlotte Rose de Caumont de la Force, a French aristocrat, published her own version of the tale, titled "Persinette". This time the girl is named Persinette, French for "parsley".
"Persinette" was translated into German several times. One translation by J. C. F. Schulz is thought to be the indirect source of the Grimms' tale. Schulz was responsible for changing the parsley into rampion/rapunzel. The Grimms were apparently unaware of the literary tales of La Force and Schulz, and assumed the tale was oral in origin (they only collected oral stories, they didn't retell published stories).
Rampion/rapunzel is a real plant. In Latin it's called "Campanula rapunculus", and it has blue bell-shaped flowers and roots that are indeed edible. From Dictionary.com (feel free to dispute this!), it says the word rampion ultimately derives from Latin, "turnip". I believe "rapunzel" is the German version of "rampion", so that explains Rapunzel's name in German/Schulz/Grimms' version.
Miranda - Who knows far too much about fairy tales! :-p
A poor couple longs for a child, and finally the wife becomes pregnant. Unfortunately, she then happens to look out her window one day and sees a bed of rampion/rapunzel growing in the next door neighbour's garden. The next door neighbour is a witch/sorceress. The wife develops a craving for the rampion, so the husband (eventually) goes and steals some for her. The witch catches the husband the second time he steals rampion, and in payment for the stolen rampion, the couple must give up the child the wife is pregnant with. The baby is named Rapunzel for this reason. When Rapunzel turns 12, the witch/adoptive mother locks her up in the tower, until one day a prince comes by. Rapunzel lets him climb up her hair, they talk, they get engaged, ect. But the witch finds out about this, and takes Rapunzel to a desert/forest and leaves her there. She also blinds the prince. Eventually, the blind prince finds Rapunzel again, and Rapunzel heals his eyesight with her magical tears.
In the original German Rapunzel version of the story, Rapunzel gives birth to twins while in the desert/forest, but this is often edited out because of *gasp* implied premarital sex.
However, the story is much old than the current Grimm/German Rapunzel version. (The following is from SurLaLune Fairy Tales. http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/rapunzel/history.html)
The first literary version was Italian, written by Giambattista Basile in 1637. The story was titled "Pentamerone". The girl was named Petrosinella, after "petrosine", or parsley.
Sixty years later in 1697, Charlotte Rose de Caumont de la Force, a French aristocrat, published her own version of the tale, titled "Persinette". This time the girl is named Persinette, French for "parsley".
"Persinette" was translated into German several times. One translation by J. C. F. Schulz is thought to be the indirect source of the Grimms' tale. Schulz was responsible for changing the parsley into rampion/rapunzel. The Grimms were apparently unaware of the literary tales of La Force and Schulz, and assumed the tale was oral in origin (they only collected oral stories, they didn't retell published stories).
Rampion/rapunzel is a real plant. In Latin it's called "Campanula rapunculus", and it has blue bell-shaped flowers and roots that are indeed edible. From Dictionary.com (feel free to dispute this!), it says the word rampion ultimately derives from Latin, "turnip". I believe "rapunzel" is the German version of "rampion", so that explains Rapunzel's name in German/Schulz/Grimms' version.
Miranda - Who knows far too much about fairy tales! :-p
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Replies
Interesting Genre of the story
I think that this version is interesting form the other one, mainly because it is so diverse from the one often heard in the other stories. It is interesting because i has more to it and seems that way.
I think that this version is interesting form the other one, mainly because it is so diverse from the one often heard in the other stories. It is interesting because i has more to it and seems that way.
1
Hello,
First of all, excuse my english ! I'm french...
I juste have one question : actually "Persinette" is one of my ancester's family lastname (my grand mother's name was Persinette-Gautrez). I'm doing some research about my family and I just found your article. Would you have informations about the exact meaning of this name. Is this actually originally a first name ?
My family comes from French Guyana, and I recently found out that there was a book named "Julie and Persinette" written by some people over there.
I really hope you can tell me more about this name
Thank you very much
Anne
First of all, excuse my english ! I'm french...
I juste have one question : actually "Persinette" is one of my ancester's family lastname (my grand mother's name was Persinette-Gautrez). I'm doing some research about my family and I just found your article. Would you have informations about the exact meaning of this name. Is this actually originally a first name ?
My family comes from French Guyana, and I recently found out that there was a book named "Julie and Persinette" written by some people over there.
I really hope you can tell me more about this name
Thank you very much
Anne
1
Wow! Impressing!!
Hi
I'm sure there's nothing more about that fairy tale anyone CAN know!! Very interesting!
Here's something more about the origin and meaning of Rapunzel:
In my dictionary I found the English translation "lamb's-lettuce", but in some southern German dialects it is used for almost any kind of sallad ;).
The word was first used in Germany the 16th century, and it derives from Middle Latin "rapuncium" from Latin "radice puntium": 'radix' meaning "root" + 'phu' (acc. 'phun') meaning "kind of valerian".
Some dialectal variants of that word are:
Rapunze
Rapünzchen
Rapünzlein
The German pronunciation is rah-POON-tsel (short oo like in 'book').
Regards, Satu
Hi
I'm sure there's nothing more about that fairy tale anyone CAN know!! Very interesting!
Here's something more about the origin and meaning of Rapunzel:
In my dictionary I found the English translation "lamb's-lettuce", but in some southern German dialects it is used for almost any kind of sallad ;).
The word was first used in Germany the 16th century, and it derives from Middle Latin "rapuncium" from Latin "radice puntium": 'radix' meaning "root" + 'phu' (acc. 'phun') meaning "kind of valerian".
Some dialectal variants of that word are:
Rapunze
Rapünzchen
Rapünzlein
The German pronunciation is rah-POON-tsel (short oo like in 'book').
Regards, Satu
1
Oops, correction
Giambattista Basile's version of Rapunzel was titled "Parsley", not "Pentamerone". "Pentamerone" was the title of her collection of fairy tales.
"Parsley" is the English translation. "Pentamerone" was translated into English in 1847 by John Edward Taylor. The original language was a Neapolitan dialect.
Sorry it took awhile for me to post this correction. I just re-visited SurLaLune tonight (this morning?) and saw that they had the English translation of Basile's work.
Miranda
Giambattista Basile's version of Rapunzel was titled "Parsley", not "Pentamerone". "Pentamerone" was the title of her collection of fairy tales.
"Parsley" is the English translation. "Pentamerone" was translated into English in 1847 by John Edward Taylor. The original language was a Neapolitan dialect.
Sorry it took awhile for me to post this correction. I just re-visited SurLaLune tonight (this morning?) and saw that they had the English translation of Basile's work.
Miranda
1
Oops again: Giambattista Basile was a man!
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Most interesting! :-)
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