Hansel and Gretel

Two children are left behind in the middle of a pitch-dark forest, with no lamp and no familiar path. Somehow they must find their way home. The answer comes in two tries, not one. The first time, the moonlight shows them the way. The second time, a flock of hungry forest birds nearly costs them their lives. The one who holds the answer is a boy named Hansel. The one with the courage to walk the whole road home is his little sister, Gretel.

Their story belongs to the treasury of fairy tales that German families kept alive over many generations. Later, two scholars, the Brothers Grimm, collected these tales with great care and wrote them down. That is why the story is still told today.

At the edge of a vast forest lived a poor woodcutter with his second wife and his own two children, a boy named Hansel and a girl named Gretel. A great famine swept across the whole region. The harvest failed year after year, until there was not enough bread in the house for four mouths.

One night, thinking the children were fast asleep, the stepmother leaned close to her husband's ear. In the morning, she said, he must lead the two children deep into the forest and leave them there. Otherwise all four of them would starve. The father was startled and refused. He could not bear to leave his own children helpless in the deep woods. But his wife would not give in. She said again and again that if they did not do it, the whole family would starve together. At last he nodded, with a heavy heart.

Hansel lay awake and heard every word through the thin wooden wall. When his parents were asleep, he quietly opened the door and stepped out into the yard. There he filled both his pockets with white pebbles that sparkled in the moonlight.

The next morning, as the family set off into the forest, Hansel kept to the back, now and then turning to look at the house. No one noticed that every few steps he took a pebble from his pocket and let it drop softly onto the path. Deep in the forest, the parents lit a small fire. They told the two children to sit still and wait, then quietly walked away. Night fell. Hansel and Gretel sat close together and waited until the moon rose high. Its light fell on each white pebble along the old path, and the pebbles shone like little silver coins. Holding hands, the two followed them one by one. They walked all night without rest, until the familiar roof appeared before them. The father wept with joy to see his children come home. The stepmother was not pleased at all.

But before long the famine struck again, harder than before. The stepmother insisted on trying once more, this time going even deeper, to where the forest was thickest. That night the door of the house was locked tight, and Hansel had no way to get out to the yard for pebbles. So he lay back down and quietly thought of another way.

The next morning each child was given a small piece of bread. On the way into the forest, Hansel secretly crumbled his piece in his pocket, and every few steps he dropped a few crumbs on the path. What he did not know was that flocks of hungry forest birds were quietly following behind all day, pecking up every crumb on the ground. That evening the parents slipped away again and left the two children alone, and the moon rose just as it had before. But this time, when Hansel and Gretel looked for the way home, there was not a single crumb to follow. They walked and walked through the deep woods, more lost with every step. Their stomachs ached with hunger and their legs were worn out. For several days on end they could not find a way out.

On their third day of wandering, the children saw a beautiful white bird on a branch. It sang and then flew off. Curious, they followed it, until a strange little house appeared in front of them. Its walls were made of bread and its roof of cake, and its clear windows were made of sugar. After so many days of hunger, they did not stop to think. They broke off a piece of the bread wall and a corner of the cake roof and ate greedily.

Just then the door flew open and an old woman stepped out. In a gentle voice she invited the children inside and promised that no harm would come to them. She gave them a fine, filling meal, then made up two soft beds for them to rest. But the kind old woman was really a wicked witch. She had built the whole house of bread and cake only to lure children close and catch them.

The next morning the witch seized Hansel and shut him in a small pen behind the house. Gretel was made to stay and cook, sweep and wait on her. The witch meant to fatten Hansel up for a good meal. Every morning she crept over to the pen. Her eyes were poor, so she told Hansel to stick his finger out through the bars and let her feel whether he was fat yet. Quick-witted Hansel held out a small bone each time instead of his own finger. He had found it in the pen. The witch felt the dry bone and kept wondering why the boy stayed so thin. Morning after morning, for four whole weeks, Hansel calmly fooled her poor eyes.

At last the witch lost patience. She decided to cook Hansel whether he was fat or not, and she sent Gretel to see whether the oven was hot enough. Gretel guessed her plan at once. She pretended to be confused and said she did not know how to do it properly. Annoyed, the witch leaned right into the mouth of the oven to show her. At that very moment Gretel pushed with all her strength and shoved the witch inside. The oven door slammed shut and the bolt slid home, and the wicked witch never came out again.

Gretel ran to the pen and let Hansel out. The two hugged each other, crying with joy. Hand in hand they went through the witch's house and found many large chests full of shining pearls and precious stones. Hansel stuffed both his pockets. Gretel gathered up the front of her dress and carried away as many jewels as it would hold.

Leaving the house of bread behind, the children set off to find their way home. In time they came to a wide stretch of water, with no bridge and no boat. Gretel saw a white duck swimming near the shore and called out to it for help. The gentle duck swam over and carried Hansel across first. Then it came back for Gretel and carried her on its back, bringing them both safely to the other side.

On the far bank, the children soon knew the forest around them, and in the distance they saw their father's roof. They ran home, calling out loudly. Through all those days the father had not had a single happy hour, because he missed his children so. Now he cried out with joy to see Hansel and Gretel come back safe and sound. He was alone in the house, because the stepmother had died while the children were lost in the forest. Hansel and Gretel emptied the pearls and precious stones from their pockets and from the front of Gretel's dress, spilling them across the floor. They sparkled all over the little kitchen.

Poverty never troubled the little family again. By the warm hearth, the father sat between his two children, his hands still trembling with emotion. Pearls rolled gently across the wooden table, gleaming in the flickering firelight. Gretel rested her head on Hansel's shoulder, and the two dozed off right there by the fire, small and at peace, in the warmth returning to the house.