h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Interestingly enough, none of the versions of Rapunzel I've read end up with them locked in the tower at the end

I read Rapunzel to my kids and the odd thing about that story is that Rapunzel is separated from her parents at birth. But even when the witch is dead (or out of the frame anyway), there's no talk of Rapunzel being reunited with her poor parents. A loose end that the writer failed to tie up, I'd say.

That's very true - as I remember it she jumped out of the tower, landing in the thorns and going blind. Or was that the hero? Whoever it was got washed out the other's tears and it all ended happily every after...

IIRC, the witch threw the prince out of the tower after tricking him, and thorns blinded him (Rapunzel had been made to climb down the silk ladder). In the version I remember from when I was a child, the prince's eyes are healed by Rapunzel's tears, and her children are with her when he finds her (when I was younger, I didn't think anything of it, but later I realized that the children were likely the prince's, as well). The version in PaperBaby's book has them reuniting with Rapunzel's parents. (Some of the stories in that book annoy me, because they are so changed. Some are just shortened because it's a book of stories that can be read in 3 minutes, so that doesn't bother me, much, but Hansel and Gretel, in this book, aren't left by their mother, but get lost when they decide to sneak out and help their father find food)

My version (which must be the most true and correct what with it being 39 years old and by Ladybird) has them making their way happily through the forest to the prince's kingdom where they live happily ever after. Awww...

Odd what reading the original versions of fairytales will reveal. The Little Mermaid commits suicide. And in the medieval French version of the story, Sleeping Beauty wakes up not when the prince kisses her but when she has the baby!

As for fairytale names... Rapunzel was named after a kind of salad