Mother desperately wants a child but is unable to have one, causing a great amount of unhappiness and bitterness. However, Napoli goes much further into this backstory, showing us why Mother makes this deal. The neighbor, a witch in the Grimms’ version and in Napoli’s, catches them and demands the child as payment. It follows the set-up we find in most versions of the fairy tale: a pregnant woman develops a craving for the rapunzel lettuce (or parsley, depending on the version) in her neighbor’s garden to the point where either she or her husband steals it. Napoli doesn’t give the reader the backstory of how Mother ended up with Zel until much later, but this seems like a good time to discuss it. Meanwhile at the blacksmith, Zel meets Konrad, a young nobleman who becomes instantly smitten with her. This upsets Mother, who states in her narration that she and Zel must remain together forever. While Mother is buying cloth to make Zel a new dress, the shop woman guesses that Zel will be married within the year.

We see that Mother has no intention of ever letting Zel leave her almost immediately, though we don’t learn the reason. It is just a few days before Zel’s thirteenth birthday, and Mother leaves her watching a horse being shod at the blacksmith in order to buy her birthday presents. Zel and Mother live in an isolated alm with only each other and animals for company except for the two times a year they go to the market in town. Napoli begins her story during this point and shows the events leading up to Mother locking Zel away in the tower.

While both the Grimm and the de la Force versions say that the witch/fairy raises Rapunzel/Persinette outside the tower until she is twelve, they do not give any details.

She begins the story by establishing the relationship between Rapunzel, nicknamed Zel, and Mother. Napoli mainly draws on the German version of the tale by the Brothers Grimm, which itself heavily draws from the French “Persinette” written by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force. Sorry! My Rating: 4 stars Warning: Contains spoilers As a Retelling: The kindle edition doesn’t have a cover photo for who knows what reason, and the lighting conditions weren’t ideal. Side note: Please excuse the rather horrendous picture. Ultimately I just bought the ebook because it seemed that the library copy was never going to come. Welcome back to Fairy Tale Friday! Today, by popular vote, we’re looking at the feature’s first retelling of “Rapunzel.” Sorry it’s so much later than I thought! As I said in my previous post, there was an issue with the library.

Sirena by donna jo napoli