Upon hearing these words, Rapunzel would wrap her long, fair hair around a hook beside the window, dropping it down to Dame Gothel, who would then climb up it to Rapunzel's tower room. When she visits her, she stands beneath the tower and calls out: When she reaches her twelfth year, Dame Gothel shuts her away in a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor a door, and only one room and one window. She grows up to be the most beautiful child in the world with long golden hair. When the baby is born, Dame Gothel takes her to raise as her own and names her Rapunzel after the plant her mother craved. The man begs for mercy, and she agrees to be lenient, and allows him to take all he wants, on condition that the baby be given to her at birth. When her prized rapunzel plant (or, in most translated-to-English versions of the story, rampion) is stolen by the man to feed his pregnant wife, Dame Gothel captures him the second time and accuses him of theft. Her garden is described as the envy of all others, constantly healthy with many vegetables and flowers in perfect bloom. The name “Dame Gothel” means “godmother.”ĭame Gothel is described as an evil witch who lives in a house with a large, walled subsistence garden, beside a lonely couple whose window looks over the garden. ' Dame Gothel' (also known as ' Mother Gothel' or simply ' Gothel') is an evil witch and the primary antagonist in the German fairy tale ' Rapunzel' collected by the Brothers Grimm.

Rapunzel as a baby