Hi there!
Welcome to our first post of 2024! Our January Folktale is The Brother's Grimm's Hansel and Gretel.
Trigger Warning: child neglect, poverty, starvation, cannibalism, murder, kidnapping, lost children, death by appliance
First thing’s first- this story is so incredibly old, we decided to go with the best, most updated translation we could find, and so we went with this one.
The first Volume of The Brother’s Grimm was a butchered book, for lack of better words.
The tales were, originally, records of oral tales that were being passed around the German communities at the time. The final popular 1857 Edition had been worked and reworked into a more palatable Christian children’s book.
We stuck to the original 1812/1815 Edition.
The story we have reviewed today is the classic Hansel and Gretel- the cautionary fable touting the traditional “don’t trust strangers” lesson, but we believe it’s also a bit more than that.
The story is a short one, coming in at about 15-20 minutes in its most detailed recount. And most of the tale is actually before the witch makes her appearance.
Most of the tale discusses how the children saw their parents struggling, how they noticed their own lack of food, and even the abandonment they experienced. Hansel, the more motivated of the two, leads his sister into the woods and straight to the witch after they realize their parents aren’t coming back to get them. Oops.
These children were hungry, starving, and alone- and decided to take it upon themselves to go out into the world and find their parents, who we imagine were clearly struggling and in extreme poverty. If not their parents, then hopefully something better.
At its core though, this story is not really about brave children- it’s about clever children. Or rather a clever sister who saved her brother from what he had gotten them both into.
For those of you who may have heard the tale, but not the original complete record- the twist comes at the end, like any good story.
The witch tries to get Gretel to crawl into the oven, and Gretel, by the grace of God, tricks the witch into “showing her.”
The witch gets into the oven- Gretel slams the door- bada bing bada boom, baked witch ziti.
So, the significant detail being that God influenced Gretel to murder the witch and save her brother, we have a controversial little story that has a female hero.
The fact that the spiritual is mentioned a few times- specifically the Christian God as the force of good in this story, is no surprise; back in the day- the German country was mostly Christian at the time, and the Christian God was mostly used as the good guy in these stories; honestly because most of these stories were told to children as cautionary tales.
So instead of a real girl and boy trusting a stranger to feed them and protect them, and then winding up dead, God steps in and helps Gretel win the day- but the lesson is still conveyed- don’t trust strangers, and don’t be foolish enough to go into their ovens, let alone their house.
We found it very interesting that the whole reason the witch's house was made of bread was because in Germany at the time, there was a bread shortage.
As far as the composition of this translation, we were a little confused as to why the whole story of the witch was revealed in the middle. But overall, we liked it and it was cute, and a little spooky.
We are looking forward to Kelly Braffet's Josie and Jack, the contemporary re-telling of this classic.
With love, see you soon!
Ceraya & Brieanna
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