The Real Rapunzel

By Cynthia Morgan
Copyright 2006 on this one. All rights reserved.

Mama traded me for a handful of greens.

Daddy fixed her a salad, and Auntie Rue took me away. Auntie Rue said she took me because of the greens. A lady who put greens ahead of her baby, she sniffed, didn’t deserve one.

But really, it was my long red hair. It grew faster than kudzu; the day after my birth it reached from my cradle five feet to the floor.

And Auntie saw a goldmine.

You see, our beautiful new Queen, the delight of the court, had silky, fire-colored hair just like mine. Every knight in the kingdom loved her, and so every lady wanted her red hair.

Even as a baby, mine were the only tresses that could pass for the queen’s. And Auntie was never one to pass up an opportunity.

Morning and night, Auntie’s scissors swept across my head. Morning and night, the hair grew back. She wove fiery strands into fast-selling wigs that kept us nicely. Auntie hired a gardener, and took on a second housemaid.

Alas! When I was 16 the queen died and took our living with her. Copper hair went out of style, and no one wanted red-haired wigs.

Auntie fired the servants and took in washing. We would have gotten by if it hadn’t been for the hair. It grew and grew and grew. It filled the house, the porch, and the yard, and still it grew. We were drowning in shining copper tresses.

When hair invaded the neighbors’ yards, they complained. The town constable served an eviction notice. And Auntie Rue locked me away.

Late that night we fought our way through tangles of hair, across town and up into the old water tower. I crept inside; it was dark and cold. “You’ll have to live here until I think of something else,” Auntie said.

I shivered inside my new home, and practiced with my hair brushes.

Auntie sent for handsome princes to rescue me from my lonely tower. We thought that with help from a strong fairy godmother, one could fix my hair problem.

So far we’ve had twelve. They climb the hair, they make love to me in my tower, they insult Auntie Rue, they sally forth with their clanking great swords…and I never see them again. If I hear “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your red hair,” one more time I’m going to scream.

Now Auntie’s gone up north–she thinks we can break into the high-end sweater market if we can find some place that never heard of hair shirts. She took her spinning wheel and a day’s supply of hair.

So all day I sit here, alone in this smelly old tower, brushing my hair and praying.

Dear Lord, forget the princes. Please send a barber instead.

–Rapunzel

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