Why did Rapunzel get kidnapped again?

[conuly]

Couldn't the witch just pick an orphan up somewhere else, or find an abandoned baby on a midden or something? And if she'd gone the legitimate route, she would've been the hero of the story and could've stayed in town! Could've had as many kids as she liked! So why did she do things the hard way, again?

Comments

[siderea]

The recent Disney version actually addressed that question, interestingly enough.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie, but in the original Grimm fairy tale, it wasn't that the witch wanted a child. It was that when the child's mother was pregnant, she so craved the beautiful fresh rampion in the witch's kitchen-garden that she felt she would die if she couldn't have some. Therefore, instead of going to the witch and asking or bargaining with her, the husband climbed over the garden wall and stole the rampion. The third time, the witch caught him, and was going to kill him then and there, but he begged for his life, saying he only stole the rampion to save his wife's life. Therefore the witch said he could pick all the rampion he wanted from her garden, but she claimed the child as her own.

This was actually a very fair and merciful deal, and spared three lives. The witch had every right to kill a repeat sneak-thief caught inside her walls, and if she had done so, the wife and child would most likely have died too. The husband said he had only stolen the witch's rampion because his wife said - three times - that she would die if she couldn't have some. Therefore by the rules of magic, the child's life already belonged to the witch, and naming her Rapunzel was the emblem of the fact.

In the original tale, the witch brought Rapunzel up as her own daughter, and though the story doesn't emphasize the point, it seems likely that it was in much more comfort and luxury than the birth-parents would have provided, poor and dishonest as they were. The apple didn't fall far from the tree, though; the first chance Rapunzel got to be dishonest, she took it; threw her virginity away on the first man to whistle to her window - what a disappointment!

As for what the witch did to the man who'd violated her tower and had her virgin daughter, he damn-well deserved worse than what he got. Yet another sneak-thief, climbing in to steal her beautiful fresh Rapunzel! Why was this 'Prince' not sending up a letter introducing himself and asking her gracious permission to court her fair daughter? That's the way Princes do with Ladies. Peasant wenches, of course, require no such courtesies; one simply climbs in the window and has them while Mama is out, then 'takes a powder' once they're knocked up. "Oh yes, my love, come away with me; the King my father will so welcome a nameless pregnant peasant lass as my wife and future Queen."

Any proper Mama would be waiting with a silver dagger (http://youtu.be/yDuvjqO5WI4) for the creep. If some guy had sleazed his way into my innocent daughter's room in my absence, I'd have cut off his balls. So yeah, my sympathy is entirely on the side of the witch through the entire fairy-tale; she did not do one thing wrong, and she showed a lot more mercy and forebearance than she had to, every time, to people who were behaving dishonorably toward her.

*wry grin* Frau Totenkinder really is as good a person as she can be, and a less evil person than she could be, mostly.

[conuly]

Hanging around with lucious lettuce to lure lustful ladies is pretty suspicious. And what sort of deal is "I will add another mouth to feed to my expenses and take one from yours in exchange for your sneakthievery" anyway? I can only conclude that this was her plan from the start or else it makes even less sense!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

A lustful lady didn't have to send her husband to steal for her. She could have gone herself, with a present for the witch - even if only a loaf of bread or a piece of embroidery - and asked politely. Her husband could have gone and asked humbly if he might hoe weeds or chop wood in exchange for a little rampion. That's what honest people would do with a respectable Lady.

Maybe another mouth to feed was not a significant addition to her expenses. Maybe she had longed for a child, and here was a child she could rightfully claim. Maybe she didn't think that much about it at the time, being annoyed with the thief - she acquired a baby like acquiring a kitten; obviously she had either magic or servants (or both) to help care for the child, so she didn't need to be there all the time. She seems to have been on the go much of the time; probably she had other business that paid in gold or power, not vegetables, and the actual feeding of her household was left to her staff, human or magical.

The witch didn''t have to plan anything; why would she? It's totally unreasonable to blame her for her neighbor sneaking into her garden and stealing her rampion three times. Claiming his child was kinder than killing him, but harsh enough to punish both him and his wife - and it wasn't like she devoured the baby, or kept her in an iron cage or whatever; she treated her well.

[conuly]

Responsible people, when confronted with a thief, allow the authorities to handle it rather than disproportiately punishing them with child abduction.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Responsible humans do - in the modern world - but the witch/ogress/fairy in the story is not portrayed as human, and in the 17th century there were not 'authorities' lurking behind every bush to handle things; people handled them themselves.

Especially magical people - the Gentry, the Good Folk, all the not-exactly human beautiful and/or scary beings, who are by definition outside the pale of the Church, and not bound by human laws, customs, feelings or attitudes. Everybody knows it's a really bad idea to steal from such people - the husband in the story certainly knew it; he didn't want to go, because he reckoned he'd be killed if he was caught.

For that matter, he'd have been in just as bad straits if he'd robbed the kitchen-garden of some Christian knight or baron in a place that did have 'authorities', because they'd have simply hanged him. How not? He was caught green-handed; there was no question but that he was guilty.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

You are aware that these fairytales aren't originally set in 20th/21st century 1st world countries, yes?

[conuly]

I'm aware that they don't make any freaking sense.

Does she want a kid? There are abandoned babies all over the place and you won't have to live in a tower. Does she want revenge? How does decreasing their budget for food hurt them, exactly?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Nah, it's not about her wanting a kid, specifically - although it's true, one can't pay the Fair Folk in gold, and they do highly prize human children; remember Titania and Oberon's quarrel over one such. And it's not about her wanting revenge, either. Note that she didn't "kidnap" or "abduct" the child - she was paid the child, as fair price for saving the life of the mother.

Granted the price was high for a few bunches of salad greens, and the peasant was not in any position to dicker. And was the price so high, after all? The wife had said she'd die without it; the husband knowingly risked his life - three times - to steal it for her; fair enough: that rampion was worth a life. And it was that particular baby, nurtured on the witch's rampion, and no other child, to whom she had a right by all the rules of magic.

The stories don't make any sense if one expects magical people in medieval times to think and act like ordinary humans of the 21st century. Even ordinary humans of medieval times didn't think or act like us - my housemate and I get into long debates about whether certain of the women in the Decameron were or were not baggages, and the differences between the medieval Norse and Renaissance Italian ideas of womens' honor. But they're not fairies or selkies or sorceresses; if they were, they'd be even less comprehensible.

Sheesh, want to see the seminal example of "the Sidhe make no damn sense", check out the Tain bo Cuialnge (http://adminstaff.vassar.edu/sttaylor/Cooley/) (summary here (http://adminstaff.vassar.edu/sttaylor/Cooley/)).

[conuly]

Yeah, but the witch isn't sidhe, and by the way, spelling that word that way in English is another thing which is totally nonsensical.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

She's not Christian-human, is the point. In the first version of the story, she's an ogress; in the second, she's a fairy; the Celtic and Teutonic traditions in such matters are close enough as to make no nevermind: one doesn't steal from the magical folk, and doing anything three times in a row nails it down.

Actually, calling them "the Sidhe" is nonsensical from the start, because 'sidhe' means 'mounds' - actually, they're the Daoine Sidhe, or the Aes Sidhe, spelled 'Aos Sí ' in modern Irish.

English lives in too glassy a house of its own to be throwing rocks at anyone else's spelling. My daughter wrote a poem when she was seven, in which she spelled sidhe correctly, but misspelled mortel [sic] - she likes Gaelic; the spelling may be weird, but at least it's consistent.

Well, sort of. More than English, anyway.'

[conuly]

Gaelic spelling may be consistent in Gaelic (it's hard to be worse than English!) but it just messes everything up when transported willy nilly to English. Why do we keep trying to preserve the original spelling?

Also, I still think the story makes little to no sense.