Rapunzel Is Not Just a Princess in Fairy Tale
Rapunzel Is Not just a Princess in a Fairy Tale Column ideas sometimes arrive by chance, and from the strangest, offhand comments. Last week, my friend Terri said, “I want to ask you about an herb. I was reading nursery stories, and did you know that Rapunzel was named after an herb? Her mother ate so many of them while she was pregnant that she decided to name her baby daughter after the plant. The herbs were stolen from a witch’s garden, so she placed a curse on the baby.” It had been many years since I read “Rapunzel,” and I didn’t recall the reference to raiding the witch’s garden. I love researching odd stories and occurrences, and an unusual reference to the plant origin of the heroine’s name in a fairy tale piqued my interest. Terri is correct about the origin of Princess Rapunzel’s name. When the Brothers Grimm published “”Rapunzel” in 1812, rapunzel, or Campanula rapunculus, was commonly grown in herb and vegetable gardens. The plant name would have been familiar to readers of that period. Campanula rapunculus is a member of the Campanulaceae or bellflower family, of which there are 500 species. Campanula species are native to North Africa, Europe, and Western Asia. Other common names are bluebell and harebell. The Latin name “Campanula” translates as little bell and “rapunculus” is derived from the Latin word “rapa,” meaning small turnip, in reference to the parsnip or radish-like roots. An English-language common name of C. rapunculus is rampion, not to be confused with ramp or Allium tricoccum, a strongly flavored spring onion, native to the eastern United States and Canada, and the focus of spring festivals in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
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