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HANSEL AND GRETHEL
Once upon a time there lived in a little cottage on the edge of
the Black Forest in Germany a broom-maker, named Peter, and
his wife, Gertrude. They had two children, a boy. Hansel, and
Grethel, a pretty little girl. Now Peter and Gertrude worked
hard for a living and Hansel and Grethel each had their tasks
to perform to help provide for their daily needs. One fine sum-
mer’s day Gertrude said to the children:
“Go out into the forest, my dears, and pick some straw-
berries that our table may not be bare for supper.”
So Hansel took a basket from the wall, and Grethel took her
brother by the hand, and off they went into the woods. The
air was cool and pleasant, the little birds sang in the trees, and
the children walked along over a carpet of thick, soft moss and
sweet-smelling pine needles, while the sunshine trickled down
through the leaves and made blotches of gold on their path.
Farther and farther into the forest they wandered, picking straw-
berries and gathering flowers, of which they made garlands and
nosegays. At last Hansel cried joyously:
“See our basket! It is full! We shall all have berries for
supper.”
But just at that moment the cry of a cuckoo sounded near at
hand, echoing through the forest.
“Cuck-oo! Cuck-oo!” cried Grethel, imitating the cry of the
bird. “Cuck-oo, thou stealer of eggs!”
“Cuck-oo! Cuck-oo!” answered Hansel roguishly. “Cuck-oo,
thou stealer of strawherriesr And he stole a strawberry out of
the basket and sucked it into his mouth as though he were a
cuckoo sucking the tgg he had found in another bird’s nest.
“Ho! Ho!” cried Grethel, “I can do that too! Just watch
me!” And she took a berry also and sucked it into her mouth.
Then the cuckoo in the forest cried again.
“Cuck-oo! Cuck-oo!” mimicked Grethel, and Hansel laughed
and cried as before, “Cuck-oo! Cuck-oo! thou stealer of straw-
berries!’* This time, however, he stole not one berry, but a whole
handful to eat, and Grethel, not to be outdone, took just as many
as he. So the children played the game of the cuckoo, turn and
turn about, till they grew so excited over their play, they began
to snatch the basket back and forth and quarrel over who should
have it. Hansel was stronger than Grethel and finally he jerked
it out of her hands. In a twinkling he poured all the rest of the
berries into his mouth and greedily swallowed them, every one.
“What have you done? What have you done?** cried Grethel.
Then she began to weep for she saw what they had done. “We
have eaten up all the berries and there will be nothing at all
for mother and father for supper!”
At that, Hansel also stood still and was sorrowful and repentant.
“We must gather more,” he said, but now as the children
looked about, they saw that while they had been eating and
quarreling, the sun had simk in the west. Dull gold gleamed
the sky through the pine trees, the songs of the birds were hushed,
and about them was dim, gray twilight.
“Nay, we cannot see to gather berries now,” cried Grethel
and she crowded up close to her brother. Hansel squared his
shoulders, threw up his head and took his sister by the hand.
“Come,” he said, “I shall find the way out of the forest.”
On they wandered and on, but they could no longer see the
path. The farther they went, the deeper they lost themselves
in the wood. And now all the light had faded out of the sky.
It was dark, quite dark. Black loomed the giant pine trees
about, ghostly gleamed the little white birches, the woods were
filled with strange night sounds, over the marshes white mists
arose, and hither and thither before them darted the gleaming
fire of the will-o’-the wisp. Still Hansel held his shoulders square
and strode sturdily forward, holding his sister fast by the hand.
But at last the two were both wearied out. Not another step
could they plod. So they stopped in a little glade and said their
evening prayer together. Then they laid themselves down on
the moss and fell fast asleep with their arms twined about each
other.
By and by a bird twittered in the trees, the sun came streak-
ing through the leaves — it was morning. Grethel stretched her-
self and awoke. “Wake up! Wake up. Hansel,” cried she, and
when he, too, had opened his eyes, they set off once more through
the forest.
They had gone some little distance when lo! they came
straight upon a queer little house and both stood still in amaze-
ment, — the cottage was all made of frosted cake. Its roof
was of tarts and cookies and its windows of transparent sugar.
Around it stood a fence of life-sized gingerbread girls and boys.
The children thought they had never seen anything look so
inviting.
“Ah,” cried Hansel at once, “this will be something for us!
We will have a good meal!*’ And he ran forward and broke
off a little piece of trimming from the house, while Grethel helped
herself to a cooky shingle from the roof. Then there was heard
a little voice from within the cottage:
“Nibble, nibble, little mouse.
Who nibbles at my little house?”
But the children paid no heed. Hansel seized a whole frost-
ing balcony and Grethel wrenched off a tart. Then was heard
again the little voice from within the cottage:
“Nibble, nibble, Uttle mouse,
Who nibbles at my little house?”
Still the children turned a deaf ear and went on cramming
themselves. Now Hansel boldly broke off a great piece of the
house itself and Grethel pushed a whole round pane out of one
of the windows. Then all at once the door opened, and out
of the sugary-pugary cottage, came an ugly old witch. Hansel
and Grethel were so astonislied that they dropped what they
held to the ground. But their first alarm was soon lulled to
rest, for the old woman said in a voice as sweet as honey:
“Ah, my dear, sweet little children, who brought you here?
Come in and stay with me! You shall come to no harm and I
will feed you full of sweetmeats.”
She took them by the hand and, thinking only of what more
they might find to eat within, they followed her into the house.
A nice dinner she set before them, pancakes and sugar, syrup
and honey, and soon Hansel and Grethel were so greedily stuffing
themselves that they forgot entirely to be on their guard against
the old witch. She called them
by such pet names as Sugar
Plum and Sugar Dolly and said
she loved such sweet little dears
— loved them so much she could
just eat them up! But Hansel
and Grethel paid no heed. After
dinner, she showed them two
little white beds into which they
crawled and there they slept
through the night.
But early in the morning before Hansel and Grethel were
awake, the old witch got up, went over to a great oven in one
comer of the house and lit a blazing fire under it.
“Sweet little dears. They will be dainty morsels. They
will make beautiful gingerbread children” she said, for this
old syrup and honey witch lured children with sweetmeats to her
sugar cottage. Then she popped them into the oven and turned
them to gingerbread.
When the fire was going, she seized Hansel right out of bed
with one bony hand and carried him wriggling and squirming
off to a cage that stood behind the house. Here she locked him
up and left him, though he shook the iron bars as hard as he
could, and shrieked to her boldly to let him loose. After that she
came back and rudely awakened Grethel.
“Get up, little lazy bones!” she cried. “Get up and set the
table. Lay out on the cloth my little plate and my Httle knife
and my little napkin to wipe my mouth, and do it all quickly —
Fm to have a delicious gingerbread boy for my breakfast.”
Now Grethel began to suspect that the witch was not as
sweet as she seemed. She saw Hansel shut up in the cage and
heard the noise he was making, and there she must lay out the
little plate and wonder what was to be eaten on it, and lay out
the little knife and wonder what was to be cut with it, and lay
out the napkin and wonder, wonder, wonder. When the table
was laid, the old witch called to Grethel.
“Creep into the oven, little sweetie, and see if it is properly
heated. If it is, then we’ll put in our dough.”
She meant when Grethel had crawled in to bang the door
shut, and have a gingerbread girl as well as a boy for her break-
fast. But by this time Grethel guessed what the old woman in-
tended. So she answered:
“I don’t know how to get into the oven.”
“Ah, my dear little Sugar Dolly/’ cried the witch. “Just
crawl in. The opening is quite big enough, you can see — I
could even do it myself.”
As she spoke, she hobbled up and poked her head into the
opening. Quick as lightning Grethel gave her a shove and sent
her head first, sprawling, into the oven. Then Grethel banged
the door and bolted it and ran off to the iron cage. In a twink-
ling she had set Hansel free and the two hurried out of the cottage.
There, all about the house, they saw the row of gingerbread
children turning pink and rosy, beginning to yawn and stretch
themselves and move their arms and legs. They had all become
real children again, set free from the old witch’s charms when
Grethel popped her into the oven. Joyously they thronged
around Hansel and Grethel as soon as they awoke. Then all
in a body they went into the house to peep into the oven and
see what had become of their enemy. There, lo and behold!
was no witch at all but just a huge ginger cake! But the chil-
dren had no more desire to eat sweeties, you may believe, so
they left the ginger cake and ran, laughing and singing, out into
the forest.
They had not gone far, when Hansel and Grethel heard voices
calling, and in another moment there came Peter and Gertrude
out of the forest. The children ran and threw themselves into
the arms of their father and mother. Long had Peter and Ger-
trude searched for their little ones, and now they held them close
and covered them with kisses. Then they turned with glad cries
and started off once more to lead all the children back to their
homes. As they walked through the woods, Hansel and Grethel
filled their basket with strawberries and when they returned to
their own humble cottage, they all shared the simple supper
