THE Legend Of Bell Flower Hallow CONTINUES
Today I’m going to do a deep dive into the fairytale legend of Rapunzel and its very loose — dare I say very loose — connection to The Legend of Bellflower Hallow.
Let’s start with how the Rapunzel story began...
A pregnant woman develops a craving for a salad green called rampion, which happens to be growing in a neighbouring witch’s garden.
Her husband steals the greens, but the witch catches him and demands their baby as payment.
The witch names the child Rapunzel and, when she reaches twelve years of age, locks her away in a doorless tower.
The witch visits by calling, “Rapunzel, let down your hair,” and climbs the long golden braid.
And this is where things start to get interesting...
The First Connection – The Bellflower
Rampion is commonly identified as Campanula rapunculus, a European plant belonging to the bellflower family. It has clusters of blue or lilac-blue, bell-shaped flowers and an edible, turnip-like root.
Now, I have to say...
Who was sitting around thinking, “You know what I really fancy? Some rampion.”
I mean, seriously.
Still, the bell-shaped flowers do give us our first rather curious connection to The Legend of Bellflower Hallow.
By Katya from Moscow, Russia - Колокольчик рапунцель / rampion bellflower / Campanula rapunculus / синя камбанка / Rapunzel-Glockenblume, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45504183
The Second Connection – The Name Rapunzel
The name Rapunzel comes from the rampion plant itself, and is also associated with lamb’s lettuce.
This is where our two legends begin to get a little more interesting.
In The Legend of Bellflower Hallow, a young woman of the Hallow marks her coming of age by creating her own shawl. As each of the 40 bellflowers is woven into the shawl, she makes a wish for her future, making the finished shawl a personal record of her own hopes and dreams for the life ahead.
Forty wishes.
Forty little bell-shaped flowers.
And a story involving a young woman whose very name is connected to a bellflower.
Coincidence?
Maybe! Probably!
But let’s continue...
The Third Connection – The Tower
Now we come to the part of the Rapunzel story that has always seemed a little questionable to me.
A young woman is locked in a tower with no door, and the only way in or out is by climbing her extraordinarily long hair.
Really?
I have questions.
For starters, how long would that hair actually need to be?
And more importantly...
What if the story got the hair part wrong?
Perhaps Rapunzel wasn't sitting in that tower with metres of golden hair cascading from the window.
Perhaps she was sitting there with a very large ball of yarn and a crochet hook.
Now that seems considerably more plausible.
The Fourth Connection – The Yarn
Think about it.
Instead of lowering her hair from the tower, perhaps Rapunzel had been crocheting a very long chain.
A sturdy chain made from yarn could be lowered from the tower window, allowing someone below to climb up.
Much more practical.
And if you're going to be trapped in a tower for years, you may as well have a hobby.
Personally, I think crochet makes far more sense than growing several hundred metres of hair.
And then there is the prince.
Apparently, he happened to hear Rapunzel singing and was so enchanted that he kept returning to the tower.
I'm sorry, but how many princes have you ever heard of who just happen to be wandering around the countryside, hear someone singing from a tower and think:
“That sounds promising. I shall investigate.”
I know if I were wandering through the woods singing, even the woodland creatures would be yelling at me to shut up.
I'm thinking there may have been a little creative licence involved here too.
Perhaps he wasn't drawn there by her singing.
Perhaps he was cutting through the forest on his way to the local yarn store when he saw a very long crocheted chain hanging from the tower and, being a yarn lover and avid crocheter, thought:
“Well, that’s interesting. I wonder what yarn she’s using?”
And so, somewhere along the way, a perfectly reasonable tale involving a young woman, a tower, a considerable quantity of yarn and some perfectly sensible crochet may have become the story of a woman with extraordinarily long hair.
So What Has Rapunzel Got to Do With Bellflower Hallow?
And this is where my rather questionable investigation into Rapunzel brings me back to The Legend of Bellflower Hallow.
At first glance, there really isn't much of a connection.
Or is there?
A tower.
A witch.
A young woman with very long hair.
And, apparently, an unfortunate family obsession with vegetables.
But then there are the bellflowers.
The rampion that started the whole Rapunzel story belongs to the bellflower family. Rapunzel's very name is connected to the plant. And in The Legend of Bellflower Hallow, the bellflower is central to the story.
And this brings us back to the young women of Bellflower Hallow, who mark their coming of age by creating their own shawl, one bellflower and one wish at a time.
And suddenly, I have a much more interesting connection.
Because what if the stories we have been handed down over the years have simply lost a few details along the way?
Perhaps Rapunzel wasn't just a girl in a tower.
Perhaps she was a young woman with a questionable addiction to yarn and crochet, whiling away the hours while waiting for her life to begin.
Perhaps those weren't strands of golden hair hanging from the tower.
Perhaps they were crocheted chains.
And perhaps somewhere along the way, a perfectly innocent tale about a young woman, a tower and an alarming amount of crochet became the story of a woman with hair long enough to lower from a tower.
Because obviously, that makes much more sense.
I'm not saying it isn’t true!
I'm just saying...
I think we may have been telling the Rapunzel story wrong for several hundred years.
And perhaps that is why I find the connection to The Legend of Bellflower Hallow so intriguing.
After all, both stories involve a young woman on the threshold of a new life.
One has 40 bellflowers, each carrying a wish for the future.
The other has a young woman seemingly stuck in a tower, hanging around waiting for a prince to come along and sort out her life.
And both, if my version of history is correct, may have involved considerably more yarn than anyone has previously admitted.
Which brings me neatly back to the reason I started looking into all of this in the first place...
The Legend of Bellflower Hallow is almost ready to leave the tower.
It has been a little while since I revisited the legend behind Bellflower Hallow, but with the new design getting closer to launch, I thought it was time to take another look at the story that inspired it.
The pattern is now in the final stages of testing, and my testers have been patiently working their way through all 40 bellflowers — which is no small undertaking! We’re getting there, and I’m looking forward to sharing the finished pattern with you very soon.
And perhaps, like Rapunzel, there may be a little more to this legend than you first thought.
If you’d like to be among the first to know when The Legend of Bellflower Hallow launches, make sure you’re subscribed and have joined the Yarn Stalker Gold membership. Members will receive a special launch-day discount, so it’s worth being on the list when the bellflowers finally bloom. MEMBERS ALSO GET TO SEE A BIGGER PEEK AT THE DESIGN!