The Lettuce Girl Main Content

The story of The Lettuce Girl is about a couple who stole a witch's lettuce and were punished - their newborn daughter was taken away by the witch and locked up in a tower. The witch named the girl Lettuce Girl. Every time the witch made the lettuce put down her long hair and climb up to the tower, the secret was discovered by the prince, who met the lettuce in the same way and fell in love with her. When the witch found out, she left the lettuce in the forest where there was no one, and forced the prince to jump off a building and lose his eyes. A few years later, the wandering prince and lettuce reunited, lettuce with tears cured the prince, live a happy life!

The Story of Lettuce Girl

Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman, they always wanted a child, but they could never get one. Finally, the woman hoped that God would give her a child. At the back of their house, there was a small window, from which they could see a beautiful garden full of exotic flowers and plants. But there was a high wall around the garden, and no one dared to go in, because the garden belonged to a witch. The witch was so powerful that everyone in the world was afraid of her.

One day, his wife stood at the window and looked into the garden, and saw a piece of vegetable ground with very beautiful lettuce. These lettuces were so green and watery that they immediately aroused her appetite and she wanted to eat them very much. This desire increased day by day, and when she realized that she would not be able to eat them anyway, she became very haggard, pale and miserable. Her husband was frightened and asked her, "My dear, what ails you?"

"Ah," she replied, "I shall die if I cannot eat the lettuce from that garden behind our house."

The husband, because he loved her so much, thought, "Instead of telling his wife to go to her death, why don't we get her some lettuce, and what the heck will happen?"

At dusk he went over the wall, slipped into the witch's garden, and darted out a handful of lettuce and brought it back to her wife. The wife immediately made the lettuce into a salad and devoured it. The taste of the lettuce was so good that the next day she wanted to eat twice as much lettuce as the day before. In order to satisfy his wife, the husband decided to go into the witch's garden again. So, at dusk, he sneaked into the garden, but he just climbed down from the wall, and was shocked, because he saw the witch standing in front of him.

"How dare you," she said angrily, "sneak into my garden and steal my lettuce like a thief!"

"Alas," he replied, "have mercy on me and spare me. I have no choice but to do this. My wife saw the lettuce in your garden from the window, and wanted to eat it so badly that she would have died if she had not been able to eat it."

After hearing this, the witch slowly lost some of her anger and said to him, "If things are really as you say, I can let you pick as much lettuce as you want, but I have one condition: you must give me the child your wife is going to have. I will make her a good life and will treat her like a mother."

The husband, being afraid, had to agree to all the witch's conditions. As soon as the wife gave birth to the child, the witch came and named the child "Lettuce" and took the child away.

"Lettuce" slowly grew into the most beautiful girl under the sky. When the child was twelve years old, the witch put her in a tower. The tower was in the forest and had neither stairs nor a door, just a small window at the top. Whenever the witch tried to get in, she stood at the foot of the tower and called, "Lettuce, lettuce, hang down your hair."

The lettuce girl had long, golden, thick hair. As soon as she heard the witch's call, she loosened her braid of hair, wrapped the top around a window hook, and let it down twenty meters. The witch then climbed up this long hair.

A year or two passed. One day, the prince was riding through the forest and happened to pass by this tower. At this time, he suddenly heard a beautiful song, and could not help but stop and listen quietly. It was the lettuce girl who was singing, and she had to sing to pass the time in her loneliness. The prince wanted to climb to the top of the tower to see her, so he looked around for the door, but he could not find it. He returned to the palace, and the song had touched him so y that he rode to the forest every day to listen to it.

One day, as he stood behind a tree, he saw the witch coming, and heard her calling at the top of the tower: "Lettuce, lettuce, let down your hair."

Immediately the lettuce girl hung down her braid of hair, and the witch climbed up by it. The prince thought, "If that's the ladder that lets people climb up, I might as well try my luck."

The next evening he came to the tower and called out, "Lettuce, lettuce, hang down your hair."

Immediately the hair hung down, and the prince climbed up with it.

The lettuce girl was really astonished when she saw that it was a man who climbed up, for she had never seen a man before. But the prince spoke to her kindly, and said how his heart was so moved by her song that he could not get a moment's peace, and had to come and see her.

Slowly the lettuce-girl ceased to be afraid, and when he asked her if she would marry him, she saw that the prince was young and handsome, and thought, "Surely this man will like me better than that godmother." So she said yes, and gave her hand to the prince. She said, "I would like very much to go with you, but I don't know how to get down. Bring me a piece of silk thread every time you come, and I will make a ladder out of it. When the ladder is made up, I will climb down, and you will carry me on your horse."

As the old witch always came in the daytime, they agreed to let the prince come every evening. The witch noticed nothing until one day the lettuce girl asked her, "I ask you, Reverend Mother, how is it that when I pull you I always feel that you are much heavier than that young prince? But he comes up at once."

"Ah! You bad boy!" The witch yelled, "What are you talking about? I thought you were cut off from the world, but I didn't think you'd lied to me!"

She angrily grabbed the lettuce girl's beautiful braid, wrapped it twice around her left hand, and then manipulated a pair of scissors with her right hand, chirped a few times, and the beautiful braid fell to the ground. Then, she ruthlessly sent the lettuce girl to a wilderness, let her miserable and painful life there.

On the day the lettuce girl was sent away, the witch tied the cut braid to the window hook at the top of the tower. The prince came and cried, "Lettuce, lettuce, hang down your hair."

Grimm's Fairy Tale: The Lettuce Girl