Hansel & Gretel

#####Hansel & Gretel

on the edge of a deep, dark forest lived a woodcutter and his two children, Hansel and Gretel. After his first wife died, the woodcutter married again, but the woman was unkind and felt no love for Hansel and Gretel.

Every day the woodcutter went to the forest to chop wood. He worked very hard, but no matter how hard he worked he got so little money for his wood that he just could not afford to feed his family.

One night, when Hansel and Gretel were in bed, the woodcutter said to his wife: “How are we going to feed the children tomorrow? There’s hardly any food left.”

“We can’t afford to feed them,” she said sharply. “We don’t have any money. They’re young and strong. They’ll just have to find their own food. Tomorrow we’ll take them into the middle of the forest and come back without them. We’ll just have to leave them there.”

The woodcutter threw up his hands in horror. “My children left all alone in the forest! They might be eaten by bears!”

“Well, I can’t feed them any more. They’ll have to go!” his wife said angrily.

The woodcutter argued for a long time with his wife. But she was such a hard, frightening woman when she was angry that in the end he agreed to her plan.

Upstairs, the children were woken by the quarrel and they listened as their stepmother repeated her plan to abandon them in the forest. Gretel began to cry. But Hansel whispered, “Don’t worry. I have a plan, too.”

Later that night, when everyone was asleep, Hansel crept downstairs, quietly opened the kitchen door, and went out into the garden. There against the dark earth of the flowerbeds, hundreds of white pebbles shone brightly in the moonlight. Hansel quickly filled his pockets with pebbles and crept back to bed.

In the morning, their stepmother called them. “I think it would be nice if we all went into the forest today,” she said. “You children can play while I help your father chop wood. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Hansel and Gretel did not reply, but followed their parents into the dark forest.

“Keep up, Hansel,” shouted the

boy’s stepmother. “Why are you so slow?” But Hansel continued to dawdle behind, his hands in his pockets. And each time his stepmother’s back was turned, he dropped one of the white pebbles on to the ground.

At last, after many twists and turns among the trees, the grown-ups stopped.

“Hansel! Gretel! You poor children, you must be tired out with walking. You must sit down and rest. Here is some bread for your lunch. Now wait here for us to come and fetch you.”

The children ate the bread and, after playing for a while, they fell asleep under the trees. When they woke up, it was nearly dark and they were still alone. “They’ve left us behind,” sobbed Gretel. “We’ll never find our way home now. We’ll both be eaten by bears!”

But Hansel pointed to his trail of pebbles shining in the moonlight. He took Gretel’s hand and together they followed the trail of white pebbles all the way home.

When they knocked on the cottage door, their father opened the door and hugged them tight because he was so delighted that his wife’s cruel trick had gone wrong. But their stepmother only glared at them angrily and packed them off to bed.

“It’s no good looking so pleased,” she said to the woodcutter. “Tomorrow we must lose them in the forest and make sure they don’t find their way home.”

Upstairs, the children were still awake and they overheard their stepmother’s unkind words. Hansel lay quietly in his bed until everyone was asleep, and then he crept downstairs to collect more pebbles. But the door was locked!

Poor Hansel. He crept back to bed and lay awake trying to think what to do.

“Come on!” called their stepmother. the next morning. “Let’s spend the day in the forest again. Hansel, you can carry the bread for your lunch.”

Just as before, Hansel dawdled behind the others. And when his parents’ backs were turned, he tore little bits of bread from the loaf and dropped them.

“Keep up, Hansel!” shouted his boy stepmother. “Why are you so slow?”

After a long while they came to the middle of the forest. “Now sit down and eat your bread while we chop wood.”

They were so tired from their long walk that they soon fell fast asleep. When they woke up, it was very dark and they were all alone. But this time Gretel did not cry. “Where’s the trail, Hansel?” she asked. “How did you mark the path this time?”

“With breadcrumbs!”

“But where are they? I can’t see any.” And although they searched and searched they could not find any of the crumbs Hansel had dropped. The birds had eaten them all!

In the heart of the dark forest, Hansel and Gretel clung to each other. Soon a hard frost formed on the forest floor. They huddled together at the foot of a tree and the birds watched them from overhead.

“We ate the boy’s trail of crumbs!” they sang sadly. “We didn’t know what it was! The children are cold because of us!” The birds dropped a quilt of leaves down on to Hansel and Gretel sleeping under the tree, to protect them against the cold.

In the morning Hansel and Gretel wandered through the forest until they came to a grassy clearing among the trees. They stared in amazement for there stood a wonderful house made entirely of lovely food.

It had gingerbread walls and windows of sugar and a chocolate roof.

It looked and smelled like Easter and Christmas rolled into one.

They were so hungry that they ran to the house and began to break off bits of chocolate tiles and sugar window-sills.

Then an old lady came hobbling out of the front door. “Don’t eat my house, children,” she croaked.

“Come in and I’ll give you pancakes and puddings instead.”

So they followed her inside, and told her that they were lost and could not find their way home. Before they could finish the old woman set down in front of them two steaming pancakes oozing with fruit and cream.

“Thank you so much,” said Hansel at last, wiping his mouth. “Can I wash the plates for you, ma’am?”

“No, no child,” said the old lady. “But if you want to help me you can sweep out that cage in the corner of the room.”

It was a very large cage, big enough for Hansel to crawl inside with a brush. Suddenly, the door clanged behind him and the old woman shrieked with delight.

“Got you! A witch, a witch, that’s what I am. My gingerbread house is a trap! And who do you think I catch in my trap, eh? Children! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

The witch made poor little Gretel be her servant, making her sweep and scrub and clean.

But she had something else in mind for Hansel. “Ha! Ha! I’ll fatten you up, my boy. Then one day soon I’ll roast you for dinner!”

One day, as Gretel was sweeping the house, she noticed that the witch was very short-sighted. Every day the old woman would go to Hansel’s cage and peer in at him. “Poke your finger through the bars, lad,” she would say.

Then she would feel Hansel’s finger to see if he was getting fat. A few days later Gretel crept to the cage and whispered her plan to her brother.

So when the witch told him to poke his finger through the bars, he stuck a chicken bone through instead and let her feel that.

“Too thin, too thin,” she snapped. “You’ll never be fat enough to roast. I’ll have to turn you into soup instead!”

The next day, the old witch said to Gretel: “Heat a big pan of water on the stove so that I can cook your brother. I want it very, very hot, do you hear, so put lots of logs in the fire.”

“The stove is ready,” said Gretel after a while. “But I don’t know if it’s hot enough for you.”

“Stupid girl!” snapped the witch. “Do I have to do everything myself?” She

hobbled over to the stove and bent down to look inside. Quick as a flash, Gretel gave her a push, tumbled her into the stove and slammed the door shut.

There was a puff of purple smoke… but Gretel was too busy unlocking Hansel’s cage and setting him free to see.

“Let’s get out of this horrible forest!” she cried, “and never come back.”

“Wait a second,” said Hansel. “We can’t go home empty-handed. Father hasn’t enough food to feed us. We must take something with us.”

So they made a sledge out of the chocolate roof of the gingerbread house.

And they broke up its gingerbread walls and loaded them on to the sledge along with the sugar-spun windows, candytwist bannisters and marshmallow chairs.

Then they pulled the sledge through the forest until at last they found the path leading home.

As the woodcutter’s house came into view they could see their father standing in the doorway.

His unkind wife had run away with a rich timber merchant and he was left feeling very lonely without his children.

When he saw Hansel and Gretel he was overjoyed and hugged and kissed them.

They all took the chocolate sledge into the town and sold sweets to every family that lived there. And they took home so much money that none of them ever went hungry again.