Rapunzel - Variants

Variants

Rapunzel is blonde in the original Brothers Grimm tale, so in every medium since she is featured with her long golden hair.

Likely, the oldest European variant of this tale is Petrosinella, one of the Neapolitan tales in the Pentamerone (1634) by Giambattista Basile.

Italo Calvino included in his Italian Folktales a similar tale of a princess imprisoned in a tower, "The Canary Prince", though the imprisonment was caused by her stepmother's jealousy.

A German tale Puddocky also opens with a girl falling into the hands of a witch because of stolen food, but the person who craves it is the girl herself, and the person who steals it her mother. Another Italian tale, Prunella, has the girl steal the food and be captured by a witch.

Snow-White-Fire-Red, another Italian tale of this type, and Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa, a Greek one, tell the story from the hero's point of view; he and the heroine escape the ogress, but have to deal with a curse after.

In some newer versions Rapunzel is portrayed as a painter, such as the Barbie and Disney version.

In the novel Golden by Cameron Dokey, Rapunzel is given to the witch (named Melisande) as a result of a deal between her and Rapunzel's mother – if her mother cannot love Rapunzel no matter her appearance, she must surrender Rapunzel to the witch. Rapunzel is born bald without hope of ever growing hair, and is therefore given into the witch's care.

Grimm Fairy Tales comic series issue #19 is entitled Rapunzel. When Sela encounters a couple who makes their living hustling people out of their life savings, it's time for her to step in and teach them a lesson. The beautiful Rapunzel doesn't let her hair down just for any man; she lets it down for every man! And she's leading the love-struck fools directly into a horrible trap. But as the old saying goes 'Love is Blind' and sometimes the people you care about the most are the ones you can trust the least.

In Kate Forsyth's Bitter Greens, a retelling of the Rapunzel tale, a little girl called Margherita, and renamed Petrosinella, has the red hair of eight other girls sewn onto her own fiery hair by the witch Selena Leonelli. She also features as one of the three main characters.