Hansel would stick a little bone out, and the old woman, who had poor eyesight, thought that it was Hansel’s finger and wondered why he wasn’t putting on weight. When four weeks had passed and Hansel was still as scrawny as ever, she lost her patience and decided not to wait any longer. “Hey there, Gretel,” she called out to the girl, “go get some water and be quick about it. I don’t care whether Hansel’s plump or scrawny. He’s going to be slaughtered tomorrow, and then I’ll cook him.”
“Oh,” the poor little sister wailed, and how the tears flowed down her cheeks! “Dear God, help us,” she cried out. “If only the wild animals in the forest had eaten us, at least then we would have died together.”
“Spare me your tears!” the old woman said. “Nothing can help you now.”
Early in the morning Gretel had to go fill the kettle with water and light the fire. “First we’ll do some baking,” the old woman said. “I’ve already heated up the oven and kneaded the dough.”
She pushed poor Gretel over to the oven, from which flames were leaping. “Crawl in,” said the witch, “and see if it’s hot enough to slide the bread in.”
The witch was planning to shut the door as soon as Gretel climbed into the oven. Then she was going to bake her and eat her up too. But Gretel saw what was on her mind and said: “I don’t know how to get in there. How do I do it?”
“Silly goose,” said the old woman. “The opening is big enough. Just look. Even I can get in,” and she scrambled over to the oven and stuck her head in it. Gretel gave her a big push that sent her sprawling. Then she shut the iron door and bolted it. Phew! the witch began screeching dreadfully. But Gretel ran away and the godless witch burned miserably to death.
Gretel ran straight to Hansel, opened the little shed and cried out: “Hansel, we’re free! The old witch is dead.”
Hansel hopped out as soon as the door opened, like a bird leaving its cage. How thrilled they were: they hugged and kissed, and jumped up and down for joy! Since there was nothing more to fear, they went straight back to the witch’s house. In every corner there were chests filled with pearls and jewels. “These are even better than pebbles,” said Hansel, and he put as much as he could into his pockets.
Gretel said, “I’ll take something home too,” and she filled up her little apron.
“Let’s get going now,” said Hansel. “We have to make our way out of this witch’s forest.”
After walking for a few hours, they reached a large body of water. “We can’t get across,” said Hansel. “There’s not a bridge in sight.”
“There aren’t any ships around,” Gretel said, “but here comes a white duck. It will help us cross, if I ask it.” She called out:
“Help us, help us, little duck
Hansel and Gretel are out of luck.
There’s no bridge, not far or wide,
Help us, give us both a ride.”
The duck came paddling over. Hansel got on it and told his sister to sit down next to him. “No,” said Gretel, “that would be too heavy a load for the little duck. It can take us over one at a time.”
That’s just what the good little creature did. When they were safely on the other side and had marched on for some time, the woods became more and more familiar. Finally they could see their father’s house from afar. They began running, and then they raced into their father’s house, throwing their arms around him. The man had not had a happy hour since the day that he had abandoned the children in the forest. His wife had died. Gretel emptied her apron, and the pearls and jewels rolled all over the floor. Hansel reached into his pockets and pulled out one handful of jewels after another. Their worries were over, and they lived together in perfect happiness.
My fairy tale is done. See the mouse run. Whoever catches it can make a great big fur hat out of it.
* * *
† Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, “Hänsel und Gretel,” in Kinder- und Hausmärchen, 7th ed. (Berlin: Dieterich, 1857; first published: Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung, 1812). Translated for the first edition of this Norton Critical Edition by Maria Tatar. Copyright © 1999 by Maria Tatar.
Fulano de Tal and His Children†
Once in a town somewhere there was a married couple. They had a boy and a girl. The girl was nine years old and the boy was five. That married couple lived very happily. They got along with each other very well. But the woman had an illness and died and the man was left with the two children, the girl and the boy. Well, the children went to school and the father took good care of them. He fed them, he took care of their needs, he sent them to school, he combed their hair.
Well one day the children’s teacher fell in love with their father and gave caramels to the children. She gave them good things. The girl said, “Father, look, you have to marry our teacher. She gives us bread and honey.” But their father replied, “Oh my daughter, some day she’ll give you bread and bile. Bad things.” Every day the children said, “Father, you have to marry our teacher. She gives us bread and honey.” He said, “Oh my children, some day you will suffer bread and bile.” Well, they insisted so much that the father fell in love with the teacher and they were married.
On the second night, when the father and the teacher were having supper after the boy and girl were in bed, the teacher said to her husband, “Look, I’m going to tell you that those children have to disappear from the house. You have to take them to the forest.” The children were in bed and heard everything. The girl, who was a little smarter, went about the house and found a little sack of flour. She put a little bit of the flour into her pockets. The father got them up at three in the morning. “Father, where are you taking us?” the girl asked. “Look daughter, we’re going to a wedding and I’m going to take you to be with your aunt for a few days,” replied the father. Well, that’s how he tricked them. The girl, who was the smarter because she was nine years old going on ten, took the flour. They went down the road, and the girl left a little trail of flour whenever she felt like it. The father came to a great big forest where he left the boy and the girl. He said, “Look daughter, stay here. I’m going to prepare a load of firewood. I’ll come back and you’ll go with me. We’ll look for your aunt.” Then the father left, and the girl picked up the trail of flour. Plam, plam, plam, plam.
They came home and hid in a little corner of the kitchen. The teacher and their father were eating supper. A little of their supper was left over and the teacher said, “Look here, if your little children were here, they could eat this.” The father declared, “We can go call them.” But the teacher protested, “No, no, no, don’t call them.” The children said to each other, “We’re here and they don’t want to give us any supper.” They came out of their hiding place and said, “You won’t give any to us!” They were dying of hunger and they ate what was left over.
Well they went to bed and the teacher said again, “Look, today they came home. Tomorrow you have to take them to another forest much thicker than the last one. Don’t let them come back. I don’t want to see them in this house.” Then the girl, who was smart, went into the house and found a sack of figs. She filled her little pockets with figs and dropped them along the road. “Father where are you taking us? Once you told us our mother would give us bread and bile,” said the little girl. “No daughter, no. Yes, your mother loves you a lot. Your mother adores you. Let’s go to town. We’re going to a wedding,” replied the father. “Well fine,” agreed the girl. The father took them to a much thicker forest and told them, “You stay here. I’m going to talk to your aunt so we can all be there. You’ll see.” He went down the road and headed home. The girl picked up the trail of figs, and the children went home again. They hid in the same place in the kitchen. The father and stepmother were having supper and a little was left over again. The woman said to the man, “Look here, if your little children were here, they could eat this. Well you should fetch them. You can give it to them.” The girl said to the boy, “Here we are and they do not want to give us any supper.”
They came out again and ate it. When they were in bed, the woman said, “Look, this is the last time. If you bring the children home again, you will be the first one I’ll poison and kill. Make sure you take them far away from here. Don’t let them return again.”
Of course the poor little girl went about the house because the girl always listened to what the woman said. She didn’t find anything besides a sack of wheat. She put the wheat into her pockets and spread it to leave signs for finding the way home again. But the birds ate the wheat and left the road clean behind them. The children went into the forest and their father told them the same things as before. He told them to stay put and he tried to trick them by saying he was going on the same errand. But he didn’t fool the girl. The children followed him after he left, but they lost the trail. They couldn’t find their way home because the birds had eaten the wheat.
Now they were lost. They walked from one place to the next in the forest. They walked and they walked and spotted a light from a house in the distance. “Father must be looking for us. That light, let’s see what it is,” one of the children said. They were dying of hunger when they got to the house. The outside walls were entirely of caramels and other good things to eat. Sweet things. It was a house of candy. They followed along the walls eating the candy and a witch came out. “Who is licking my wall?” she asked. She saw the two children and said, “Oh but what are you doing here children?” “Eating,” they said. “Come in, come inside,” she told them. She had the girl sweep, wash and help clean the house. She put the boy, who was thin, into a room so small that he almost didn’t fit inside. She gave him chickens to fatten him up. Every day a chicken, every day a chicken, every day a chicken.
The day came when the old woman said, “This boy doesn’t get fat. He isn’t getting fat at all. Well tomorrow I’m going to tell him to show me his hand. Let’s see what is going on.” When she took him something to eat, she said, “Boy, show me your hand.” But he showed her a chicken’s claw instead. “Oh, how thin you are!” the old woman exclaimed. “With all you eat, you’re so thin!” She went upstairs saying, “Well no matter what, I’m going to bake him in the oven tomorrow.” The sister went down and told her brother, “Look, tomorrow you’re going to be baked in the oven.” The boy was nice and fat by this time. The sister continued, “Look, the old woman is going to light the oven. When she calls the two of us to go to the oven and tells you to blow, tell her you don’t know how. Tell her to blow first. She’ll insist that she doesn’t know how, but you tell her that you don’t know how either.”
The old woman lit the oven, removed the boy, and said, “Oh, what a tasty morsel. How you fooled me.” When she arrived at the door of the oven she said, “Blow son, blow. Blow son, blow.” “No lady, I don’t know how to blow. You blow so I can see how you do it,” replied the boy. The old woman had to blow because the boy told her that he didn’t know how. The children grabbed her and put her into the oven and they closed the oven door. Instead of baking the boy, they baked the old woman. That entire caramel house turned into gold.
The children went home and didn’t recognize their parents. They asked, “Are you Fulano de Tal?” “Yes,” replied the father. “Did you have a boy and girl whom you took to the forest?” they asked. And the woman, the stepmother, said, “Quiet! quiet girl! I’m going to chase you far away from my house!” She said that because she didn’t like what the girl might say. “Quiet, quiet girl, get away from my house. Don’t let me see you.” And the father said, “Yes, tell it all. Tell me how I’ll know if you’re my daughter and the boy is my son.” The girl explained to him who they were. The father embraced her and, as for the woman, well he snatched a tool and cut off her head and hung her head above his bed. He slapped her head three times when he went to bed and three more times when he got up.
* * *
† “Fulano de Tal and His Children,” as told by Julio Lopez in James M. Taggart, “ ‘Hansel and Gretel’ in Spain and Mexico,” The Journal of American Folklore 99.394 (Oct.–Dec. 1986): 440–41. Reprinted by permission of the American Folklore Society.
BROTHERS GRIMM
The Juniper Tree†
A long time ago, as many as two thousand years ago, there lived a rich man with a beautiful and devout wife. They loved each other dearly, but they had no children, even though they longed for them. Day and night the wife prayed for a child, but still they had no children.
Now in front of the house there was a garden, and in the garden there grew a juniper tree. Once, in the wintertime, the wife was peeling an apple under the tree, and while she was peeling it, she cut her finger. Blood dripped on the snow. “Ah,” said the woman, and she sighed deeply. “If only I had a child as red as blood and as white as snow!” Having said that, she began to feel better, for she had a feeling that something would come of it. Then she went back in the house.
A month went by, and the snow melted. Two months passed, and everything was green. Three months went by, and the flowers grew and blossomed. Four months passed, and all the trees in the woods grew tall, with their green branches intertwining. The woods resounded with the melodies of birds, and blossoms began to fall from the trees. And so the fifth month went by. And when the woman stood under the juniper tree, her heart leaped for joy because it smelled so sweet. She fell to her knees and was beside herself with joy. When the sixth month had passed, the fruit grew large and firm, and she became quite still. In the seventh month she picked the juniper berries and gorged on them until she became melancholy and ill. After the eighth month went by, she called her husband and said to him with tears in her eyes: “If I die, bury me under the juniper tree.” After that she felt better and was happy until the end of the ninth month. Then she bore a child as white as snow and as red as blood. When she saw the child she was so happy that she died.
Her husband buried her under the juniper tree, and he wept day after day. After a while he began to feel better, but he still was in tears from time to time. Eventually he stopped and then he took a second wife.
The man had a daughter with his second wife. The child from the first marriage was a little boy, as red as blood and as white as snow. Whenever the woman looked at her daughter, she felt love for her, but when her eyes landed on the little boy, she was sick at heart. It seemed that, no matter where he went, he was somehow in the way. The woman kept thinking about how she needed to get her hands on the entire family fortune for her daughter. The devil seized hold of her so that she began to hate the little boy, and she slapped him around and pinched him here and cuffed him there. The poor child lived in terror, and when he came home from school, he had no peace whatsoever.
One day the woman went to the pantry. Her little daughter followed her and said: “Mother, give me an apple.”
“All right, my child,” said the woman, and she gave her a beautiful apple from a chest that had a big heavy lid with a sharp iron lock on it.
“Mother,” said the little girl, “can’t Brother have one too?”
The woman was irritated by these words, but she just said: “Yes, he can have one when he comes back from school.”
When she looked out the window and saw the boy coming home, it was as if the devil had taken hold of her, and she snatched the apple out of her daughter’s hand and said: “You can’t have one before your brother.” Then she tossed the apple into the chest and shut it.
The little boy walked in the door, and the devil got her to speak sweetly to him and say: “My son, would you like an apple?” But she gave him a look full of hate.
“Mother,” said the little boy, “how dreadful you look! Yes, give me an apple.”
Then she felt as if she had to keep leading him on. “Come over here,” she said, and she lifted the lid. “Now pick out an apple.”
And when the little boy bent down, the devil prompted her, and bam! She slammed the lid down so hard that the boy’s head flew off and fell into the chest with the apples. Then she was overcome with fear and thought: “How am I go
ing to fix this?” She went to her room and took a white kerchief from her dresser drawer. She put the boy’s head back on his neck and tied the scarf around it so that you couldn’t see anything was wrong. Then she sat him down on a chair in front of the door and put an apple in his hand.
Later on Little Marlene came into the kitchen to see her mother, who was standing by the fire, stirring a pot of hot water round and round. “Mother,” said Little Marlene, “Brother is sitting by the door, and he looks so pale. He has an apple in his hand, and when I asked him to give me the apple, he didn’t answer. It was very scary.”
“Go back to him,” the mother said, “and if he doesn’t answer, slap his face.”
And so Little Marlene went back to him and said: “Brother, give me the apple.”
But he wouldn’t answer. So she gave him a slap, and his head went flying off. Little Marlene was so terrified that she began sobbing. Then she ran to her mother and said: “Mother, I’ve knocked my brother’s head off!” And she cried so hard that she couldn’t stop.
“Little Marlene,” said her mother, “what a dreadful thing you’ve done! But don’t breathe a word to anyone, for there’s nothing we can do. We’ll cook him up in a stew.”
And so the mother took the little boy and chopped him up. Then she put the pieces into a pot and cooked him up in a stew. Little Marlene stood nearby and wept so hard that the stew didn’t need salt because of all her tears.
When the father came home, he sat down at the table and said: “Where’s my son?”
The mother brought in a huge dish of stew, and Little Marlene wept so hard that she couldn’t stop.
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