16.03.2023

The following year, when the queen had a beautiful baby boy, the little gnome came to her with the demand that she keep her word. The Queen, who had completely forgotten the episode, wept bitterly. The little man then took pity on her and her sorrow and offered her a chance to break her promise. "You will have three days to find out my name; if on the third night you have not guessed correctly, the child will be mine." And he left. The next evening, when the dwarf was in front of her, the Queen tried all the names she knew, and each time the gnome chuckled, shaking his head and chanting, "or is that my name!" On the second night the scene repeated itself: The Queen tried the strangest names she had ever heard, and the gnome giggled slyly, "That's not my name!" The next day the Queen summoned the messengers she had sent out into the world to discover the most unusual names, and, dejectedly, she was already about to close the assembly, when a young man said he had discovered, in a clearing in the nearby forest, a strange little man cackling around a bonfire, screeching:

Day and night I will dance

If tomorrow a son I shall have!

It will be the child of my r King:

Who is happier than I?

Rapunzel is my name;

perhaps a name a little strange,

But no one will find it out

And my baby shall be.

The queen could not believe her ears, and the messenger was lavishly rewarded. That evening, when the oddly-hooded dwarf entered the room, the king's young wife cunningly began mentioning made-up names, and each time the gnome chuckled, rubbing his small, gnarled hands together, "That's not my name!" But just when, all gloating, the little dwarf was about to bend over the cradle in which the blessed Little Prince slept, the Queen said, "Is your name Rapunzel, perhaps?" The little man, green with bile, let out a terrible scream and stomped his feet so hard he broke the floor. With raised fists he went from the castle, cursing and cursing everyone. Since then no one has seen him again! The King, who in the meantime had learned to love the Queen, had completely abandoned his lust for wealth and was happy that his wife had regained her peace of mind. So they lived happily ever after for many more years.