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Hansel and Gretel

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For Humperdinck's opera, see Hänsel und Gretel (opera).
For American Industrial Metal band, see Hanzel und Gretyl.
Hansel and Gretel
Artwork by Arthur Rackham, 1909
Folk tale
NameHansel and Gretel
Aarne–Thompson grouping327A
CountryGermany
RegionKassel
Origin Date1812
Published inGrimm's Fairy Tales
RelatedThe Lost Children

Hansel and Gretel (German: Hänsel und Gretel) is a fairy tale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm. The story follows a young brother and sister who discover a house of candy and cake in the forest and a cannibalistic witch. The tale has been adapted to various media, most notably the opera Hänsel und Gretel (1893) by Engelbert Humperdinck and a stop-motion animated feature film based on the opera.

Plot

Hansel and Gretel are the young children of woodcutter. When a great famine settles over the land, the woodcutter's wife (originally the children's biological mother, but later changed to their stepmother) announces her plan to take the children into the woods and leave them there to die, so that she and her husband, with two fewer mouths to feed, might not starve. The woodcutter reluctantly submits to his wife's scheme. They are unaware that in the children's bedroom, Hansel and Gretel have overheard them. After the parents have gone to bed, the children sneak out of the house and gather as many white pebbles as they can and return to their room.

The next day, the family walk deep into the woods and the children lay a trail of white pebbles behind them. After their parents abandon them, the children wait for the moon to rise and illuminate the pebbles. They return home safely, much to their parents' horror. A week or so later, the mother angrily orders her husband to take the children further into the woods and leave them there to die. Hansel and Gretel attempt to gather more pebbles, but find the doors locked and escape impossible.

The following morning, Hansel takes a slice of bread and leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow. However after they are once again abandoned, they find that the birds have eaten the crumbs and they are lost in the woods. After days of wandering, they follow a beautiful white pigeon to a clearing in the woods, and discover a cottage built of cake and gingerbread. They greedily begin to eat the rooftop of the house, when the door opens and a hideous old crone emerges and lures the children inside, with the promise of soft beds and delicious food.

What Hansel and Gretel do not know is that the hag is in fact a cannibalistic witch who built the house to entice children into her clutches, so that she may eat them. She locks Hansel in an iron cage in the garden and forces Gretel into becoming a slave. The witch feeds Hansel regularly to fatten him up, but Hansel cleverly sticks a bone he found in the cage (presumably a bone of its previous captive or, as some stories state, a chicken bone) and the witch feels it, thinking it to be his finger. Due to her blindness, she is fooled into thinking Hansel is still too thin to eat. After weeks of this, the witch grows impatient and decides to eat Hansel, "be he fat or lean."

She prepares the oven for Hansel, but decides she is hungry enough to eat Gretel, too. She coaxes Gretel to the oven door and asks her to put her head in to see if the flames are high enough. Gretel, sensing the witch's intent, lies that she does not understand what she means. Infuriated, the witch demonstrates, and Gretel instantly shoves the witch into the oven, slams and bolts the door and turns the heat up, burning the witch alive. She frees Hansel from the cage and the pair discover a vast treasure chest filled with jewels, gold, and diamonds. Packing the jewels into knapsacks, the children find their way home to their father. His wife has mysteriously died. The father has spent all his days lamenting the loss of his children, and is delighted to see them safe and sound, and with the witch's wealth, they live happily ever after.

Analysis

In the first editions of the Grimms' collection, there was no stepmother; the mother persuaded the father to abandon their children. This change, as in Snow White, appears to be a deliberate toning down of the unpleasantness for society in general who can't bear to think of mothers trying to hurt and kill their own children.[1]

That the mother or stepmother happens to die when the children have killed the witch has suggested to many commentators that the mother or stepmother and the witch are, in fact, the same woman, or at least that an identity between them is strongly hinted at.[2] Indeed, a Russian folk tale exists in which the evil stepmother (also the wife of a poor woodcutter) asks 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 wants to avoid hunger, while the witch lures children to eat her house of candy so that she can then eat them.[1]

The tale is Aarne-Thompson type 327A.[3] Another tale of this type is The Lost Children.[4] Although they are not classified under this type, the Brothers Grimm identified the French Finette Cendron and Hop o' My Thumb as parallels to the story.[5]

Adaptations

Other uses of the names

  • There is an American industrial metal band from New York City called Hanzel und Gretyl that sing most of their songs in German.
  • Hansel and Gretel appear in the webcomic Everafter[9] by artist Endling[10], a story about mentally disturbed fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters; In which Hansel is obsessed with setting things on fire (he can be seen holding a flamthrower) and Gretel is a cannibal (shackles can be seen on her wrists).

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b Tatar, Maria. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales. W.W. Norton & Company. p. 45, 57. ISBN 0-393-05163-3.
  2. ^ Lüthi, Max (1970). Once Upon A Time: On the Nature of Fairy Tales. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. p. 64.
  3. ^ "Tales Similar to Hansel And Gretel". {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help); Unknown parameter |;ast= ignored (help)
  4. ^ Delarue, Paul (1956). The Borzoi Book of French Folk-Tales. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. p. 365.
  5. ^ Tatar, Maria. The Annotated Brothers Grimm. W.W. Norton & Company. p. 72. ISBN 0-393-05848-4.
  6. ^ http://www.amazon.com/Hansel-Gretel-Yeomen-Guard-Original/dp/B001QEIHX6/ref=pd_bxgy_m_img_b
  7. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0175536/
  8. ^ Variety.
  9. ^ Everafter on Snafu-Comics
  10. ^ Endling on DeviantArt
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