[f]Whenever Rapunzel hears that rhyme,[g] she fastens her long braided hair to a hook in the window before letting it fall twenty yards to the ground, and the sorceress climbs up it.

The prince returns to the tower often, listening to Rapunzel's beautiful singing, and one day sees the sorceress visit her as usual and learns how to gain access.

As the sorceress visits Rapunzel by day, the couple plans a means of escape: the prince will bring his wife a strand of silk every night until she has enough to make a ladder for her to climb down the tower and ride away with him on horseback.

Before the couple's escape plan can come to fruition, however, the sorceress visits one day and Rapunzel innocently asks her why all her clothes are tight around the waist (this part comes from the 1812 original edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen or Children's and Household Tales, most commonly known in English as Grimms' Fairy Tales;[13] in later editions, Rapunzel instead asks "Dame Gothel",[h] in a moment of forgetfulness, why it is easier for her to draw up the prince than her[15]).

[17] Some researchers have proposed that the earliest possible inspiration for the "Maiden in the Tower" archetype is to the pre-Christian European (or proto-Indo-European) sun or dawn goddess myths, in which the light deity is trapped and is rescued.

[21][22] Her story was included in The Book of the City of Ladies, completed by 1405 by Christine de Pizan in vernacular French, which may have been highly influential on later writers, as it was popular throughout Europe.

[22] The earliest surviving reference to a female character with long hair that she offers to a male lover to climb like a ladder appears in the Persian epic poem Shahnameh, written by Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE.

[3] Most importantly, this version of the story contains a "flight" scene in which Petrosinella uses magic acorns that turn into animals to distract the ogress while she pursues the couple fleeing the tower.

[23] This "flight" scene, with three magic objects used as distraction, is found in oral variants in the Mediterranean region, notably Sicily (Angiola), Malta (Little Parsley and Little Fennel), and Greece (Anthousa the Fair with Golden Hair).

[22][24] Before her imprisonment, de la Force was a prominent figure in the Parisian salons and considered one of the early conteuses as a contemporary to Charles Perrault.

[23] Although the Grimms' recounting of the fairy tale is the most prevalent version of the "Maiden in the Tower" in the western literary canon, the story does not appear to have connections to a Germanic oral folktale tradition.

[23] Notably, the 1812 publication retains the out of wedlock pregnancy that reveals the prince's visits to the witch, whereas in the 1857 version edited by Wilhelm Grimm, it is Rapunzel's slip of the tongue to address criticism that the tale was not appropriate for children.

[30] Many scholars have interpreted "Maiden in the Tower" stories, which Rapunzel is a part of, as a metaphor for the protection of young women from pre-marital relationships by overzealous guardians.

[3] Scholars have also noted the strong theme of love conquering all in the story, as the lovers are united after years of searching in all versions after Persinette and are ultimately happily reunited as a family.

[32] Furthermore, folkloric beliefs often regarded it as dangerous to deny a pregnant woman any food she craved, making the bargain with the sorceress more understandable, since the husband would have perceived his actions as saving his wife at the cost of his child.

Anne Sexton wrote a poem called "Rapunzel" in her collection Transformations (1971), a book in which she re-envisions sixteen of the Grimm's Fairy tales.

[37] Cress is the third book in the Lunar Chronicles, a young adult science fiction series written by Marissa Meyer that is an adaptation of Rapunzel.

Crescent, nicknamed "Cress", is a prisoner on a satellite who is rescued and falls in love with her hero "Captain Thorne" amidst the story about "Cinder" a cyborg version of Cinderella.

[38] In 2022, Mary McMyne published a standalone adult historical fantasy novel The Book of Gothel, which speculates that the witch's character was inspired by the life of a medieval midwife named Haelewise, daughter-of-Hedda, who lived in 12th century Germania.

In the American fairy tale miniseries, The Tenth Kingdom (2000), the main character, Virginia Lewis is cursed by a Gypsy witch.

[48] The American television animated anthology series, Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (1995-2000), the classic story is retold with a full African-American cast and set in New Orleans.