Rapunzel Untangled

The adjective used to title Walt Disney Animation’s 50^th animated feature film could just as easily describe the circuitous route taken by the original story transcribed by the Brothers Grimm before it was rendered in 3D CGI. Rapunzel was first published in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Children’s and Household Tales in 1812. Like my previous piece on Charles Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, I’d like to reprint that story for you, with a few notes to follow. This translation from the original German was by Margaret Hunt, for the two-volume publication Grimm’s Household Tales in 1884.