Hansel and Gretel tale

Hansel and Gretel tale

The tale of Hansel and Gretel

Long ago, on the outskirts of a Forest In Germany, a woodcutter lived with his second wife and the pair of children he had with the first, named Hansel, the boy, and Gretel, the girl. Those were times of great poverty and famine, and the woodcutter's family no longer had much food left.

"What are we going to do?" He demanded his wife from the woodcutter. "Food runs out very quickly with those two gluttonous children."

But he only asked her for patience and told her that things would soon have to improve. So things continued until one night, believing that the children were sleeping soundly, the woodcutter's wife told him She proposed to take them deep into the forest, make a fire for them, and leave them there for some pious traveler to take care of. them.

"How can you propose something like that to me?" Replied the woodcutter. "What will become of my poor children in the forest?"

"If we don't, all four of us are going to starve!" She insisted.

Hansel and Gretel overheard the conversation and trembled with fear. They knew that sooner or later their stepmother would convince her father. So a few days later, when their stepmother woke them up saying that they would all go camping together in the woods, they already knew what was coming.

That morning they received a crust of bread from the woman and her father, with a heavy heart, led them into the forest. Hansel, however, had filled his pockets with white pebbles that were in abundance near the house, and every so often he would drop one marking the way back.

Thus they reached the depths of the forest and his father cut branches for a bonfire, telling them to eat while he cut more wood to take home. Hansel and Gretel sat by the fire and ate the bread, confident because they could hear the blows of the father's ax against the wood.

Hours passed and night began to fall. Then they wanted to go back to where their father was, but they discovered that the noise was made by a thick branch of a tree that the wind made blow against another. They were alone in the middle of the forest.

"Now how are we going to get home?" Gretel asked, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Don't worry, sister!" Hansel replied. "We just have to follow the trail of the white pebbles."

They did so and were soon back home. Her stepmother tried to hide the anger and surprise she felt, accusing them of being naughty children who had been lost in the woods to worry her father. However, that same night, when the children were in bed, Hansel again heard his stepmother arguing with his father.

"You didn't take them far enough!" He demanded. "You'll try again tomorrow."

So it was. The stepmother woke them up again, handed them some bread, and led them into the forest, but this time, before leaving, she emptied their pockets to make sure they weren't taking anything. So Hansel could not fill them again with pebbles.

The children set out for the forest with the woodcutter, and on the way Hansel dropped the crumbs of their bread as they went. They came to a clearing again and made a fire, but this time the walk had been so long that they were exhausted. Then, unintentionally, they fell asleep, and when they woke up, again, they found themselves abandoned in the forest.

"Don't worry, sister!" Hansel said again, realizing it.

But when they got ready to do it, they realized that the breadcrumbs were gone: the forest birds had eaten them. So it would be impossible to find a way back.

Hansel and Gretel spent days wandering in the woods, starving and cold, not knowing what to do. Until one afternoon, chasing a white bird in the middle of a forest clearing, they ran into front with a beautiful house, made with marzipan and cookies, with sweets instead of tiles and windows of chocolate. The aroma of those desserts took them headlong into the house and without thinking twice they began to eat the roof apart.

Suddenly a voice from inside the house he called them:

"Oh, poor children!" They must be starving. Come in, come in, here you will have warm beds and delicious food.

Hansel and Gretel entered the house and realized that the sweet little voice was coming from a horrible witch, who had served a table full of sweets and delicacies. Hunger was stronger than common sense: they sat and ate until they burst, so much so that when they finished they immediately fell asleep.

The horrible witch, hungry too, then felt her little bodies and noticed that they were tremendously skinny. So she locked Hansel in an iron box, filled with the bones of other equally unfortunate children, while she forced her sister to clean the house and work as a slave.

Day by day, the witch gave Gretel just a few crab shells to eat, while Hansel She introduced him to the box of the best foods, sweets and dishes, which the child devoured without thinking two times. And at nightfall, the witch would ask Hansel to stick his little finger through a hole in the box, and she would feel it to see if she had gotten fat enough to eat it. But Hansel, realizing her intentions, instead of sticking out her royal finger, offered her a bone of the skeletons in the box, so the witch always found him thin.

They stayed that way for a couple of weeks, until one night, raging with hunger and tired of waiting, the witch again asked Hansel to stick her little finger out. The boy poked the bone out again. Then the witch screamed in the sky and said that she was going to eat them both, no matter how skinny or fat they were.

The witch went to the kitchen and lit the oven, stoking the fire with plenty of wood, and when she was all set, he called Gretel and ordered her to look out to see if the fire was high enough hot. The girl, who already suspected her intentions, told him that she did not understand where she should look.

"Baked, girl!" Don't you know anything? - replied the witch.

But Gretel played her cards well and pretended not to understand. She was looking over, to the sides, anywhere but in.

"Like this, silly girl!" A) Yes! Look! '' The witch yelled, leaning herself out of the oven door. Gretel took advantage of her moment to push her into the oven and close the door with all her strength, letting the witch cook in her own fire.

When nothing but ashes remained of the witch, Gretel rescued the key from the iron box and removed her brother, who had already gained several kilos. Together they searched the witch's house and took not only the food, but a bag of jewels and precious stones that the witch had hidden.

Outside the house, a stork was waiting for them, which took them on its legs and flew with them to the edge of the forest. There, they spotted his father's house. And when they knocked on the door, they were surprised to see his father alone, for his wicked wife had starved to death in recent days.

Deeply repentant, his father received them in her arms and they shared with him the delicacies stolen from the witch. And the rest of their days were spent happily by the three of them, safe from poverty thanks to the witch's jewels, never again missing a plate of food on the table.

What you should know about Hansel and Gretel

Hansel and Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel in German) is a fairy tale of traditional German origin, the oldest known versions of which date back to the Middle Ages, specifically, between the years of 1250 and 1500, although there are previous stories with which it shares many of its elements, such as the path of breadcrumbs, present in other fairy tales French.

The best known version of this story is the one collected in 1812 by the famous Grimm brothers (Jacob and Wilhelm) in their compendium of fairy tales. There the authorship of the story is attributed to different traditional stories of the German town of Hesse, But it is known today that the Grimms got it from very different sources, including some friends from the family.

Initially the story bore the title of "the little brother and the little sister" (Das Brüderchen und das Schwesterchen), but throughout its revisions it was gaining in length and detail, until it finally became the story that we know today.

References:

• "Narration" in Wikipedia.
• "Hansel and Gretel" in Wikipedia.
• "Hansel and Gretel" in Educate.
• "Hansel and Gretel" in Oxford Reference.

What is a story?

A story It is a short story, with few characters and with a single plot that can be based on real or fictional events. They are narrative texts with a argument relatively simple, in which the characters participate in a single central action. The spaces are also limited: the events usually occur in no more than one or two places. They are characterized by the presence of a storyteller and for having an introduction, a middle and a denouement.

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