son's name was Hansel and his daughter's name was Gretel. Their family was already short of food and drink, and this year, when
prices in the country were soaring, the woodcutter's family had no food at all, and could not even secure their daily bread.
This day
Night, the woodcutter who was so worried that he couldn't sleep lay on his bed and sighed and moaned. At last he said to
his wife, "What shall we do? We have nothing to eat ourselves, and what are we going to feed our poor children
ah?"
"Listen to me, father," answered his wife, "early to-morrow morning we will take the children far
away into the thick forest, and there we will make a fire for them, and give each of them a small piece of bread, and then we will pretend to go to our work, and leave them alone. our work, and leave them there alone. They don't know the way, they can't get home, and we won't have to
support them."
"No, wife," said the woodcutter, "I can't do that. How can I bear to leave my children in the
jungle to feed the beasts!"
"Ay, you fool," said his wife, "otherwise all four of us will starve to death!"
The two children were so hungry that they could not sleep, and they heard the whole conversation between their stepmother and father. Hearing his stepmother
's advice to his father, Gretel burst into sad tears, and said to Hansel, "It's all over for us now."
"Don't squeal, Gretel," Hansel said to comfort her, "Don't worry, I'll find a way."
When the two adults were asleep, he put on his little tunic and opened the back door to sneak out of the room. The moon was
bright at this time, and the bright moonlight made those little white stones in the open space in front of the room shine like a silver coin.
Hansel crouched down and did his best to stuff the pockets of his coat with white stones. Then he went back into the house and said to Gretel, "Don't worry,
little sister, just sleep well, God will be with us."
With that, he went back to his cot and went to sleep.
Just as dawn broke and the sun had not yet leapt over the horizon, the woman woke up the two children, "Get up, get
up, you two lazy bums!" She yelled, "We're going into the mountains to cut wood." With that, she gave one of the children
a small piece of bread and cautioned them, "This is your lunch, don't eat it early, for you won't be getting any more
." Gretel took the bread and hid it under her apron, for Hansel's pockets
were by this time stuffed with white stones.
Then the family set off towards the forest. Hansel always stopped to look back at his
home when he was walking for a while. When his father saw this, he said, "Hansel, what are you always
looking back at?
Concentrate on your path."
"Oh, father," replied Hansel, "I am looking at my white cat, who is crouching high up on the roof,
trying to say 'good-bye' to me! "
"That's not your kitten, little fool," spoke the stepmother, "that's the morning sun shining on the chimney." In fact
Hansel was not really looking at the kitten; he was quietly taking the bright white stones out of his pocket and dropping them
one by one on the path he walked.
When they reached the depths of the forest, their father said to them, "Hey, boys, go and gather some firewood and I'll build
you a fire."
Hansel and Gretel gathered many dead branches and piled them up as high as a hill. When the dead branches were lighted and the fire
flame rose high, their stepmother said to them, "Lie down by the fire, you two, and stay well, while
your father and I go into the wood to cut wood. As soon as the work is done, we will come and fetch you home."
So Hansel and Gretel sat by the fire and waited for their parents to finish their work before coming to fetch them. By midday
they had eaten their small piece of bread. Because they had been able to hear the thump, thump, thump of the axe chopping down the trees,
they believed their father was close by. In fact, it wasn't even the sound of the axe that they heard, it was the sound of
a dead branch tied to a small tree, hitting the trunk as the wind blew. The siblings sat there for
a long, long time, so tired that their upper and lower eyelids were fighting. It wasn't long before they both drifted off to sleep,
and by the time they woke up from their dream, it was a dark night. Gretel cried out in fear and said, "Now we
can't find our way out of the forest!"
"Don't worry," said Hansel, comforting her, "When the moon comes out in a little while, we will soon find our way out of the
forest."
Soon, when the full moon rose, Hansel took his sister's hand and followed the path guided by the white stones that shone like silver
coins on the ground in the moonlight. They traveled all night, and returned to their father's door just as the day was breaking
. They knocked on the door and it was their stepmother who answered. As soon as she opened
the door and saw that it was Hansel and Gretel, she said, "Why did you sleep in the forest for so long, we thought you
didn't want to go home!"
The father was overjoyed to see his children, for it was hard on his heart to abandon his two children in cold blood.
The family struggled to live together again. But not long after, there was another national famine. One night
The children heard their stepmother say to their father, "Oh, my! We've eaten everything we could, and we've only got half a loaf of bread left, so what are we going to do? We still have to lighten the load, and we must get rid of the two children! This time
we can take them deeper and farther into the forest, so that they will never find their way back. Only in this
way can we save ourselves."
The woodcutter was very saddened to hear his wife talking about abandoning the children again. He thought to himself, "Wouldn't it be better for all of us to share **** and **** and
share the last piece of bread? But like every man in the world, it's hard to say "no" to a woman,
and the woodcutter was no exception. Just like the saying "whoever puts on the cage must pull the cart"
, the woodcutter made the first concession to his wife, of course, there must be a second concession, and he
won't object to his wife's suggestion anymore.
The children, however, heard their whole conversation. When both parents were asleep, Hansel rose again from his bed
and tried to slip out of the door and go outside, as he had done on the last occasion, to pick up some small stones, but this time he found that the door had been left locked by his stepmother
. But he had a new idea in his mind, and he comforted his little sister again, saying, "Don't cry, Gretel,
don't worry, and sleep well. God will help us."
Early in the morning, the stepmother pulled the children out of bed. She gave them each a piece of bread, but
it was much smaller than the last one.
On the way to the forest, Hansel crumbled his bread in his pocket, and stopped now and then to scatter crumbs of broken
bread on the road.
"Hansel, what are you dilly-dallying about looking behind?" His father asked him when he saw that he kept falling behind.
"I'm looking at my little pigeon, who is standing on the roof 'cooing' to say goodbye to me." Hansel replied
Saying.
"You idiot," cried his stepmother, "that's not your pigeon, that's the morning sun shining on top of the chimney
." But Hansel spread his crumbs on the road anyway, bit by bit.
The stepmother led them on a long, long walk to a forest where they had never been before. Like last time,
another big fire was built, and again the stepmother said to them, "Stay well here, children, and if you are sleepy, go to sleep
we will go far away to cut wood, and when we have done our work we will come and fetch you."
And when it was noon, Gretel divided her bread with Hansel and ate it, for Hansel's bread had been spilled
on the road. Then they both fell asleep again. It was midnight, and still no one came to fetch the two poor children
and they awoke to darkness. Hansel comforted his sister by saying, "When the moon comes out, we will see
the crumbs I scattered on the ground, and it will surely show us the way home."
But when the moon rose, they couldn't find any breadcrumbs on the ground, and it turned out that they had all
been pecked away a little by the birds that were flying around in the woods and fields.
Though Hansel was getting a little anxious too, he reassured his sister by saying, "We'll find our way, G
lette."
But they had not been able to find the way, and though they had been walking for a day and a night, they just could not get out of the forest. They had
become dizzy with hunger, for they had eaten nothing but a few straw molds they had found on the ground. By this time they were
so tired that they could not even move their feet, and fell asleep under a tree.
It was the third morning since they had left their father's house, and they were deep in the jungle and already lost. If they couldn't
get help again, they would surely die. Just then, they saw an extremely beautiful, snow-white bird standing on a branch, singing so beautifully that the siblings could not help but stop
to listen to it. When it had finished its song, it spread its wings and flew to them, as if signaling them to follow it.
They then followed it forward until they came to the front of a hut, and the bird stopped on the roof of the hut.
The two of them then realized that the hut was actually made of fragrant bread, and that the roof was a thick cake, but the windows were
bright sugar cubes.
"Let's let our bellies loose," said Hansel, "it's time for a nice meal. I'll have
a little piece of the roof, Gretel, and you can have the window; it must taste beautiful and sweet."
With that, Hansel climbed up and broke a small piece of roof off and tasted it. Gretel, however, stood in front of the window and nibbled at the sweet window with
her mouth. At that moment, a voice suddenly came from the house:
"Nibble! Nibble it! Nibble, nibble!
Who is gnawing on my little house?"
The children replied:
"It's the wind, it's the wind,
it's the little doll from heaven."
They answered as they ate, not at all disturbed.
Hansel, finding the roof particularly beautiful, removed another large piece; and Gretel simply gouged out a small
round window, and sat down on the floor to enjoy it slowly. Suddenly, the door to the house opened, and an old woman came out trembling
with a cane. Hansel and Gretel were so frightened that their legs trembled and the food they held in their hands fell to the floor.
The old woman shook her trembling head and said, "Good children, who brought you here? Come,
come with me into the house, no one will hurt you here!"
With these words she took the siblings by the hand, and led them into her hut, and prepared for them a good
supper of milk, sugar-cakes, apples, and nuts. When the children had finished eating, she made two
little white beds for them, and Hansel and Gretel, as soon as they lay down on them, felt at once that they were in heaven.
In fact, this old woman is a smile hiding a knife, her friendliness is just a disguise for them to see, she is in fact a
specialized in luring the children to fall into the evil witch, her house built with gourmet food is designed to let the children fall into
her trap. Once any child falls into her clutches, she kills him, cooks him and eats him. This witch's
red eyes had poor vision and could not see very far, but she had a sense of smell like a wild animal, and she could smell
people from a long, long way away. She knew just as Hansel and Gretel approached her house, and laughed a wild laugh of delight, and then
with a sneer she made up her mind, "I will hold them fast, and never let them escape."
Early the next morning, before the children woke up, she was up. Looking at the two little ones' red, round
rolling faces, she couldn't help but drool, "What a beautiful meal!" With that, she grabbed Hansel's little arm and
carried him into a small stable and locked him up with a fence. Hansel yelled and screamed inside, but it was
no use. Then the old hag went over and shook Gretel awake, yelling at her, "Get up, lazy girl! Go
and fetch some water to cook something tasty for your brother. He's locked in the stables outside, and I'm going to make him fat and then
eat him."
Gretel cried out in sadness at this, but she had to go to work as the old hag had told her.
So Hansel got to eat a lot of good food every day, while poor Gretel only had crab shells to eat every day. Every
morning the old witch had to walk trembling down to the little stable and call out to Hansel: "Hansel, hold out your finger
so I can feel if you have gained any weight!" But Hansel reached out to her every time with a gnawed little bone,
and the old hag, with her old eyes, could not see clearly at all, and she really thought it was Hansel's finger!
In her heart, she felt
to be very puzzled, how Hansel has not grown a little fatter?
Another four weeks passed, and Hansel was still very thin. The old witch lost her patience and threatened that she didn't want to
wait any longer.
"Come here, Gretel," she yelled at the little girl, "and go fetch water quickly! Whether he is fat or thin, to-morrow
day I shall kill Hansel and boil him for dinner."
The poor little sister was made to fetch water to prepare her brother for boiling, and all the way she was so sad that tears fell in bunches down her
cheeks! "Dear God, please help us!" She cried out, "It would have been better to have been eaten by the beasts when
we were in the forest in the first place, then we would have always died together huh!"
While the old witch was gone for a moment, poor Gretel took her chance and ran to Hansel, and told him all she had heard:
"We must run away, for the old woman is a wicked witch, and she will kill us."
But Hansel said, "I know how to escape, for I have got the pins out of the way. But you
must first go and steal her wand and the flute that hangs in her room, so that if she comes after us, we shall not
be afraid of her."
When Gretel had managed to steal both the wand and the flute, the two children fled.
At this point, the old hag walked by to see if her beautiful meal was done and realized that the two children were gone. Even though her
eyes were bad, she saw the two escaping children through the window.
She burst into a rage and rushed to put on her boots that could walk several yards in a single step, and it wasn't long before she was about to catch up with
the two children. Seeing that the old witch was about to catch up with them, Gretel used the wand she had stolen to turn Hansel
el into a lake and herself into a little swan swimming around in it. The old witch came
to the lake and threw some bread crumbs into the lake to try to trick the swan. But the swan just wouldn't come, and in the end
the old witch had to go back empty-handed.
When the old witch left, Gretel used her wand to change herself and Hansel back to their old selves.
Then they continued on their way until it was dark.
Soon the old witch caught up with them again.
At this point, the little girl turned herself into a rose in the hawthorn hedge, so Hansel sat down next to this rose
to become a piper.
"Good piper," said the old hag, "may I pluck that pretty rose?"
"Oh, yes." Hansel said.
So the old witch, who knew very well what that rose was, walked quickly towards the hedge to try to pick it quickly. Just
then Hansel took out his flute and played it.
It was a magic flute, and anyone who heard it could not help but dance. So the old witch had to
keep spinning with the sound of the flute, and could not pick the rose any more. And Hansel kept on blowing,
until the thorns hung up the witch's dress and pierced her flesh so y that she screamed.
At last, the old witch was firmly entangled in the thorns.
At this point, Gretel regained her original form and walked with Hansel towards home. After a long
walk, Gretel was tired. So they found a hollow tree in a meadow close to the forest and
lay down in a hole in the tree. Just as they were falling asleep, the
old witch, who had managed to get out of the thorn bush, came after them again. As soon as she saw her wand, she grabbed it with a proud hand. Then, immediately, she turned the pitiable
Hansel into a fawn.
When Gretel woke up and saw what had happened, she sadly jumped on the poor little creature and cried
. At this point, tears also kept pouring down from the fawn's eyes.
Gretel said, "Don't worry, dear fawn, I will never leave you."
And saying this, she took off her long golden necklace and put it round his neck, and then she pulled down some corduroy
and wove it into a rope of straw, and put it round the fawn's neck, and wherever she went she took the poor fawn
with her.
At last, one day they came to a hut. Seeing that the hut was unoccupied, Gretel said,
"Let us stay here."
She gathered many leaves and moss and made a soft bed for the fawn. Every morning she went out and picked
nuts and berries to feed her, and many leaves and grasses for her brother. She put the leaves and grass
in her own hand to feed the fawn, and the fawn jumped about merrily beside her. At night, when Glad
t was tired, she would lay her head on the fawn's body and sleep. How happy their
life would have been if poor Hansel had been restored to his original form!
And so they lived in the forest for many years, and by this time Gretel had grown into a young girl. One
day it happened that the king came here to hunt. When Fawn heard the sound of trumpets echoing through the forest, the barking of hounds
and the shouts of the hunters, she could not help but see what was going on. "Oh, sister," he said, "let
me go into the forest and see what is going on; I can't stay here any longer." He kept on pleading, and at last she had to agree
to let him go.
"But," she said, "be sure to be back before dark. I will shut the door to keep the hunters
out. If you knock and say, 'Sister, let me in.' I'll know it's you coming back. If you do not speak,
I will shut the door firmly."
So the fawn ran out with a bound. When the king and his hunters saw this beautiful fawn
they came after him, but they could not catch him, for every time they thought they were about to catch him
he jumped into the bushes and hid.
When it was dark, the deer ran back to the hut, and he knocked on the door and said, "Sister, let me in!" Yu
It was Gretel who then opened the door, and he jumped in and slept beautifully in his warm, soft bed.
The next morning the roundup began again. As soon as Fawn heard the hunters' trumpet, he said, "Sister,
open the door for me. I must get out."
When the king and his hunters saw the fawn, they immediately started rounding him up again. They chased him all day, and at last
they rounded him up, and one of the hunters shot him in one of his feet. He limped with great difficulty
and escaped back to his home. The hunter who had shot him followed him and heard the fawn say, "Sister, let
me in." The door was also seen to open, and the fawn went in and quickly closed it again. So this hunter went back
and reported to the king what he had seen. The king said, "Then let us make another roundup tomorrow."
Gretel was frightened when she saw that her dear fawn was wounded. Nevertheless, she cleaned the wound
for him and put some herbs on it. The next morning the wound was actually healed. When the trumpet blew again, the little thing said again, "I can't stay here, I must go out and see. I will be more
careful not to let them catch me."
But Gretel said, "I am sure they will kill you this time, and I won't let you go."
"If you keep me here then I shall die of regret." He said. Gretel was obliged to let him out
She opened the door with a heavy heart, and the fawn then ran merrily off into the forest again.
As soon as the king saw the fawn, he ordered in a loud voice: "You must chase him to-day, but none of you shall hurt
him."
However, when the sun went down, they still couldn't catch him. So the king said to the hunter who had once stalked the little
deer, "Now then lead me to that hut."
So they came to the hut, and the king knocked at the door, and said, "Sister, let me in."
When the door was opened, the king went in, and saw standing in the house the most beautiful young
woman he had ever seen in his life.
Gretel was terrified when she saw that the visitor was not her fawn but a king wearing a crown.
But the king took her hand very kindly and said, "Will you come with me to my castle and be my
wife?"
"Yes," said Gretel, "I will go with you to your castle, but I cannot be your
wife, for my fawn must be with me, and I cannot part with him."
"Well, then," said the king, "he may go with you and never leave you, and have whatever he wants
."
While this was going on, the fawn jumped in. So Gretel put the straw rope round his neck, and they left
the hut together.
The king took little Gretel on his high horse and ran towards his palace. The fawn followed them happily
. Along the way, Gretel told the king all about her, and the king, who knew the old hag
, sent for her and ordered her to return to her human form as a fawn.
When Gretel saw her dear brother restored to his original form, she was so grateful to the king that she readily agreed to marry
him. And so they lived happily ever after, and Hansel became the king's minister of the palace