Array The Brothers Grimm - Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm - A New English Version

They greeted each other joyfully. But the king had a plan, and the queen agreed to hide in a different bedchamber till the following Sunday, when the baby was going to be baptized. At the baptism the false queen stood there heavily veiled, with her mother close, both pretending that she was too ill to speak.

The king said, ‘What punishment should someone receive who drags an innocent victim out of bed and throws her into the river to drown?’

The stepmother said at once, ‘That’s a dreadful crime. The murderer should be put into a barrel studded with nails, and rolled downhill into the water.’

‘Then that is what we shall do,’ said the king.

He ordered such a barrel made, and as soon as it was ready, the woman and her daughter were put inside and the top was nailed down. The barrel was rolled downhill till it fell into the river, and that was the end of them.

Tale type:ATU 403, ‘The Black and the White Bride’

Source:a story told to the Grimm brothers by Dortchen Wild

Similar stories:Italo Calvino: ‘Belmiele and Belsole’, ‘The King of the Peacocks’ ( Italian Folktales ); Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: ‘Little Brother and Little Sister’, ‘The White Bride and the Black Bride’ ( Children’s and Household Tales )

The second part of this story is similar to ‘Little Brother and Little Sister’, but the first half, with the comedy of the three little men, has a quite different tone. I gave the three dwarfs a little more to say than the Grimms do.

At the edge of a great forest lived a poor woodcutter with his wife and his two children, a boy called Hansel and a girl called Gretel. The family had little to eat at the best of times, and what’s more there was a famine in the land, and often the father couldn’t even provide their daily bread.

One night as he lay in bed worrying about their poverty, he sighed and said to his wife, ‘What’s going to become of us? How can we keep the children fed when we haven’t any food for ourselves?’

‘I tell you what,’ she said. ‘This is what we’ll do. Early tomorrow morning we’ll take them into the thickest part of the forest, make them comfortable, light a fire to keep them warm, give them a little bit of bread, and then leave them there by themselves. They won’t find their way home, and we’ll be rid of them.’

‘No, no, no,’ said the husband, ‘I won’t do that. Abandon my own children in the forest? Never! Wild animals would tear them to pieces.’

‘You’re a fool,’ said his wife. ‘If we don’t get rid of them, all four of us will starve. You may as well start planing the wood for our coffins.’

She gave him no peace until he gave in.

‘But I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘I can’t help feeling sorry for them…’

In the next room, the children were awake. They couldn’t sleep because they were so hungry, and they heard every word their stepmother said.

Gretel wept bitterly and whispered, ‘Oh, Hansel, it’s the end for us!’

‘Hush,’ said Hansel. ‘Stop worrying. I know what we can do.’

As soon as the grown-ups had fallen asleep, Hansel got out of bed, put on his old jacket, opened the lower half of the door and crept outside. The moon was shining brightly, and the white pebbles in front of the house glittered like silver coins. Hansel crouched down and filled his pockets with as many as he could cram in.

Then he went back inside and got into bed and whispered, ‘Don’t worry, Gretel. Go to sleep now. God will look after us. Anyway, I’ve got a plan.’

At daybreak, even before the sun had risen, the woman came in and pulled the covers off their bed.

‘Get up, you layabouts!’ she said. ‘We’re going into the forest to get some wood.’

She gave them each a slice of dry bread.

‘That’s your lunch,’ she said, ‘and don’t gobble it up too soon, because there’s nothing else.’

Gretel put the bread in her apron, because Hansel’s pockets were full of pebbles. They all set off together into the forest. From time to time Hansel would stop and look back at the house, until finally his father said, ‘What are you doing, boy? Keep up. Use your legs.’

‘I’m looking at my white kitten,’ Hansel said. ‘He’s sitting on the roof. He wants to say goodbye to me.’

‘Stupid boy,’ said the woman. ‘That’s not your kitten, it’s the sun shining on the chimney.’

In fact, Hansel had been dropping the pebbles one by one on the path behind them. He was looking back because he wanted to make sure they could be seen.

When they got to the middle of the forest their father said, ‘Go and fetch some kindling. I’ll make a fire so you won’t freeze.’

The children gathered some small twigs, a whole pile of them, and their father set them alight. When the fire was burning well the woman said, ‘Make yourselves comfortable, my dears. Lie down by the fire and snuggle up warm. We’ll go off and cut some wood now, and when we’ve finished we’ll come and get you.’

Hansel and Gretel sat down by the fire. When they felt it must be midday they ate their bread. They could hear the sound of an axe not far away, so they thought their father was nearby; but it wasn’t an axe, it was a branch that he’d tied to a dead tree. The wind swung it back and forth, so it knocked on the wood.

The children sat there for a long time, and gradually their eyelids began to feel heavy. As the afternoon went past and the light faded, they leaned closer together and fell sound asleep.

They awoke to find themselves in darkness. Gretel began to cry. ‘How can we ever find our way out?’ she sobbed.

‘Wait till the moon comes up,’ said Hansel. ‘Then you’ll see how my plan will work.’

When the moon did come up it was full and brilliant, and the white stones Hansel had dropped shone like newly minted coins. Hand in hand, the two children followed the trail all through the night, and just as dawn was breaking, they arrived at their father’s house.

The door was locked, so they knocked loudly. When the woman opened it her eyes opened too, in shock. ‘You wretched children! You made us so worried!’ And she hugged them so tightly they couldn’t breathe. ‘Why did you sleep so long? We thought you didn’t want to come back!’

And she pinched their cheeks as if she were really glad to see them. When their father came down a moment later, the relief and joy in his face was real, because he hadn’t wanted to leave them at all.

So that time they were safe. But not long afterwards, food was short again, and many people went hungry. One night the children heard the woman say to their father, ‘It’s no good. We’ve only got half a loaf left, and then we’ll all starve. We must get rid of the children, and do it properly this time. They must have had some trick before, but if we take them deep enough into the woods they’ll never find their way out.’

‘Oh, I don’t like it,’ said the father. ‘There’s not just wild animals in the forest, you know. There are goblins and witches and the Lord knows what. Wouldn’t it be better to share the loaf with the children?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said the woman. ‘Where’s the sense in that? You’re soft, that’s the trouble with you. Soft and stupid.’

She tore him to shreds with her criticism, and he had no defence; if you’ve given in once, you have to give in ever after.

The children were awake, and they had heard the conversation. When the adults were asleep, Hansel got up and tried to go outside again, but the woman had locked the door and hidden the key. Nevertheless, he comforted his sister when he got back into bed, and said, ‘Don’t worry, Gretel. Go to sleep now. God will protect us.’