Hansel & Gretel meet the Blind Witch
"Hansel & Gretel", which is also known as Hansel and Gretel, Hansel and Grettel, Hansel and Grethel, or Little Brother and Little Sister, is a well-known fairy tale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 as tale number 15. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister, who were kidnapped by a cannibalistic witch living deep in the forest in a house constructed of cake and confectionery. The two children shall save their lives by outwitting her. Under the Aarne–Thompson classification system, "Hansel & Gretel" is classified under Class 327.
Plot[]
Hansel and Gretel are young children, whose father is a Woodcutter. When a great famine settled over the land, the Woodcutter's abusive second wife decided to take the children into the woods. Her plan was to abandon the kids in the woods so that she and her husband will not starve to death. According to her it is mainly because the children can eat too much. The Woodcutter opposed the plan but finally and reluctantly submitted to his wife's scheme. Unfortunately, while talking about their plan, they are unaware that Hansel and Gretel have overheard them from the children's bedroom. After the parents have gone to bed, Hansel sneaked out of the house and gathered as many white pebbles as he can, then returned to his room, reassuring Gretel that God will not forsake them.
The next three days, the family walked deep into the woods and Hansel laid a trail of white pebbles. After their parents must leave them, the children can wait for the moon to rise before following the pebbles back home. They shall return home safely, much to their stepmother's horror. Once again provisions can become scarce and the stepmother angrily ordered her husband to take the children farther into the woods and leave them there to die. Hansel and Gretel will attempt to leave the house to gather more pebbles, only to find the doors locked and escape impossible.
The following morning, the family went into the woods. Hansel took a slice of bread and left a trail of bread crumbs to follow home, but, after they are once again abandoned, the children must find out that birds have eaten the crumbs and they are lost in the woods. After days of wandering, they can follow a beautiful white bird to a clearing in the woods, where they shall discover a large cottage built of gingerbread and cakes with window panes of clear sugar. Hungry and tired, the children must begin to eat the rooftop of the candy house, when the door opens. A hideous old hag emerged and lured them inside with the promise of soft beds and delicious food. Unaware that their hostess is a bloodthirsty Witch, who built the gingerbread house to lure children to her to cook and eat them, the children can enter the house.
The following morning, the witch locked Hansel in a cage, and forced Gretel into becoming a slave. The witch force-fed Hansel regularly to fatten him up, but he cleverly offered a bone and the witch felt it, thinking that it is his finger. Due to her blindness, she is fooled into thinking that Hansel is still too thin to eat. After weeks of this, the witch grew impatient and decided to eat Hansel anyway.
The witch prepared the oven for Hansel, and decided to kill Gretel as well. She coaxed Gretel to open the oven and prodded her to lean over in front of it to see if the fire is hot enough. Sensing the witch's intent, Gretel pretended that she does not understand what she is being told to do. Infuriated, the witch demonstrated and Gretel instantly shoved her into the oven and slammed and bolted the door shut. Gretel freed Hansel from the cage and the pair shall discover a vase full of treasure and precious stones. Putting the jewels into their clothing, the children set off for home.
A swan carried them across an expanse of water and at home, they can find their father, who told them that his wife died from unknown causes. With the witch's wealth that they found, they can all live happily ever after.
History and analysis[]
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm heard "Hansel & Gretel" from Wilhelm's friend (and future wife) Dortchen Wild and published it in Kinder - und Hausmärchen in 1812. In the Grimm tale, the Woodcutter and his wife are the children's biological parents and share the blame for abandoning them. In later editions, some slight revisions were made: the wife is the children's stepmother, the woodcutter opposed his wife's scheme to abandon the children and religious references are made. The sequence where the swan helped them across the river is also an addition to later editions.
The fairy tale may have originated in the medieval period of the Great Famine (1315–1321), which caused desperate people to abandon young children to fend for themselves, or even resort to cannibalism.
Folklorists Iona and Peter Opie indicate in The Classic Fairy Tales (1974) that "Hansel & Gretel" belonged to a group of European tales especially popular in the Baltic regions, about children outwitting ogres into whose hands they have involuntarily fallen. The tale beared resemblances to the first half of Charles Perrault's "Hop-o'-My-Thumb" (1697) and Madame d'Aulnoy's "Finette Cendron" (1721). In both tales, the Opies note, abandoned children must find their way home by following a trail. In "Clever Cinders", the Opies can observe that the heroine incinerated a giant by shoving him into an oven in a manner similar to Gretel's dispatch of the witch and they shall point out that a ruse involving a twig in a Swedish tale resembled Hansel's trick of the dry bone. Linguist and folklorist Edward Vajda has proposed that these stories can represent the remnant of a coming-of-age rite-of-passage tale extant in Proto-Indo-European society. A house made of confectionery is found in a 14th-century manuscript about the Land of Cockayne.
The fact that the mother or stepmother died when the children have killed the witch has suggested to many commentators that the mother or stepmother and the witch are metaphorically the same woman. A Russian folk tale existed in which the evil stepmother (also the wife of a poor woodcutter) asked her hated stepdaughter to go into the forest to borrow a light from her sister, who turns out to be Baba Yaga, who is also a cannibalistic witch. Besides highlighting the endangerment of children (as well as their own cleverness), the tales have in common a preoccupation with food and with hurting children: the mother or stepmother wanted to avoid hunger, while the witch lured children to eat her house of candy so that she can then eat them. Another tale of this type is the French fairy tale The Lost Children. The Brothers Grimm also identified the French Finette Cendron and Hop o' My Thumb as parallel stories.
See Also[]
- The Blind Witch
- Brother and Sister
- Woodcutter