“But her hair,” said Urlenn, “oh, her hair — it grew golden and so long — finer than silk, stronger than steel. Was it for this magic, perhaps imparted by the witch’s salad, that the witch truly wanted her? Some plan she must have had to use the hapless maiden and her flowing locks? I thwarted it. For having met the maid, she and I fell in love.”
Urlenn had intended to rescue his lover from the tower, but before that was accomplished, he visited her every day. And the witch, cunning and absolute, discovered them. “You’ll realize,” said Urlenn, “she had only to look into some sorcerous glass to learn of our meetings. But we, in our headstrong love, forgot she could.”
“Faithless!” screamed the witch, and coming upon the girl alone, cut off all her golden hair. Then the witch, hearing the young man calling, herself let the tresses down for his ladder. And he, in error, climbed them. Once in the tower’s top, the witch confronted him in a form so horrible, he could not later recall it. By her arcane strengths, however, she flung him down all the length of the tower, among great thorns and brambles which had sprung up there.
“Among them I almost lost my sight. You see the scars left on my forehead. Blinded, I wandered partly mad for months.”
Beyond the tower lay an occult desert, caused by the witch’s searing spells. Here the witch in turn cast the maiden, leaving her there to die.
But, by the emphasis of love and hope, she survived, giving birth alone in the wilderness, to the prince’s children, a little boy and girl, as alike as sunflowers.
“There in the end, sick, and half insane, I found her. Then she ran to me and her healing tears fell on my eyes. And my sight was restored.”
Love had triumphed. The desert could not, thereafter, keep them, and the prince and his beloved, wife in all but name, emerged into the world again, and so set out for the kingdom of the prince’s father.
He’s crying again. Yes, I should hang myself. But maybe not. After all, she said I might make out her Gran was wicked — said the old lady would have laughed — all in a good cause. A perfect cause. They’re all crying. Look at it. And the Dad — he does love a story.
“My son — my son — won’t this evil sorceress pursue you?”
Urlenn said, frankly, “She hasn’t yet. And it was a year ago.”
The king said, “Where is the maiden?”
Oh, the hush.
“She waits just outside, my lordly sire. And our children, too. One thing …”
“What is it?”
“Since the witch’s cruel blow, her hair lost its supernatural luster. Now it’s just … a nice shade of flaxen. Nor will it grow at all. She cuts it short. She prefers that, you see, after the use to which it was last put. By her hair, then, you’ll never know her. Only by her sweetness and her lovely soul, which shine through her like a light through glass.”
Then the doors were opened and Flarva came in. She wore a white gown, with pearls in her short yellow hair. She looked as beautiful as a dream. And after her walked two servants with two sleeping babies. And by them, a pale stalking cat which, having no place in the legend, at first no one saw. (Although it may have found its way into other tales.)
But the king strode forward, his eyes very bright. Never, Urlenn thought, had he seen this man so full of life and fascinated interest. Or had he seen it often, long ago, when he was only three or four or five? In Flarva’s time …
“Welcome,” said the king, the Dad, gracious as a king or a father may be. “Welcome to the wife of my son, my daughter, Rapunzel.”
Tanith Lee says of her story, “My only other assault so far, on the story of ‘Rapunzel’”—‘The Golden Rope,’ in Red as Blood, 1983—“tried to explore, as I normally do, intricacies within intricacies, the convolutions under already complete knots and windings. This time a preposterous simplicity suggested itself. Perhaps it was just the time for it, for me. Any supernatural myth or folktale could have a similar base, and some maybe do.… What endeared this debunking to me so much was that the deceptions sprang from love. And love, of course, the pivot of so many fairy tales (along with the darker avarice, rage and competitiveness) is itself one of the magic intangibles. Invisible as air, only to be seen by its effects, love remains entirely and intransigently real.”
The Crone
DELIA SHERMAN
Delia Sherman is the author of numerous short stories, and of the novels Through a Brazen Mirror, The Porcelain Dove (which won the Mythopoeic Award), and The Freedom Maze. She is the co-author of “The Fall of the Kings” in Bending the Landscape (nominated for a World Fantasy Award) with fellow fantasist and partner Ellen Kushner, and co-editor of The Horns of Elfland: An Anthology of Music and Magic. Sherman is also co-editor, with Terri Windling, of The Essential Bordertown. She is a contributing editor for Tor Books and a member of the Tiptree Awards Motherboard.
The old crone is a familiar fairy tale figure found in stories around the world. In “quest” and “boy-in-search-of-fortune” fairy tales, the hero encounters an old woman on the road and must treat her with courtesy or suffer the consequences. In courtly French fairy tales she is usually a beautiful fairy in disguise, but in German and French peasant folk lore, the crone sits mysteriously at the edges of the story, encouraging children to be kind to poverty-stricken old ladies.
Big Hair
ESTHER FRIESNER
Esther Friesner lives in Connecticut with her husband, two children, two rambunctious cats, and a fluctuating population of hamsters. She is the author of twenty-nine novels and over one hundred short stories, in addition to being the editor of four popular anthologies. She is also a published poet, a playwright, and once wrote an advice column. Besides winning two Nebula Awards in succession for Best Short Story (1995 and 1996), Friesner won the Romantic Times Award for Best New Fantasy Writer in 1986 and the Skylark Award in 1994. She is currently working on an epic fantasy and is also editing the third in the Chicks in Chainmail anthology series, called Chicks and Chained Males.