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Hansel and Gretel

"Hansel and Gretel" (/ˈhænsəl, ˈhɛn- ...ˈɡrɛtəl/; German: Hänsel und Gretel [ˈhɛnzl̩ ʔʊnt ˈɡʁeːtl̩])[a] is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 as part of Grimm's Fairy Tales (KHM 15).[1][2] It is also known as Little Step Brother and Little Step Sister.

Hansel and Gretel
The witch welcomes Hansel and Gretel into her hut. Illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1909.
Folk tale
NameHansel and Gretel
Aarne–Thompson groupingATU 327A
RegionGerman
Published inKinder- und Hausmärchen, by the Brothers Grimm

Hansel and Gretel are siblings who are abandoned in a forest and fall into the hands of a witch who lives in a gingerbread, cake, and candy house. The witch, who has cannibalistic intentions, intends to fatten Hansel before eventually eating him. However, Gretel saves her brother by pushing the witch into her own oven, killing her, and escaping with the witch's treasure.[3]

Set in medieval Germany, "Hansel and Gretel" has been adapted into various media, including the opera Hänsel und Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck, which was first performed in 1893.[4][5]

Origin

Sources

Although Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm credited "various tales from Hesse" (the region where they lived) as their source, scholars have argued that the brothers heard the story in 1809 from the family of Wilhelm's friend and future wife, Dortchen Wild, and partly from other sources.[6] A handwritten note in the Grimms' personal copy of the first edition reveals that in 1813 Wild contributed to the children's verse answer to the witch, "The wind, the wind,/ The heavenly child," which rhymes in German: "Der Wind, der Wind,/ Das himmlische Kind."[2]

According to folklorist Jack Zipes, the tale emerged in the Late Middle Ages Germany (1250–1500). Shortly after this period, close written variants like Martin Montanus' Garten Gesellschaft (1590) began to appear.[3] Scholar Christine Goldberg argues that the episode of the paths marked with stones and crumbs, already found in the French "Finette Cendron" and "Hop-o'-My-Thumb" (1697), represents "an elaboration of the motif of the thread that Ariadne gives Theseus to use to get out of the Minoan labyrinth".[7] A house made of confectionery is also found in a 14th-century manuscript about the Land of Cockayne.[4]

Editions

 
Sculpture of Hansel on the duck by Ignatius Taschner. Märchenbrunnen, Berlin.

From the pre-publication manuscript of 1810 (Das Brüderchen und das Schwesterchen) to the sixth edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Grimm's Fairy Tales) in 1850, the Brothers Grimm made several alterations to the story, which progressively gained in length, psychological motivation, and visual imagery,[8] but also became more Christian in tone, shifting the blame for abandonment from a mother to a stepmother associated with the witch.[1][3]

In the original edition of the tale, the woodcutter's wife is the children's biological mother,[9] but she was also called "stepmother" from the 4th edition (1840).[10][11] The Brothers Grimm indeed introduced the word "stepmother", but retained "mother" in some passages. Even their final version in the 7th edition (1857) remains unclear about her role, for it refers to the woodcutter's wife twice as "the mother" and once as "the stepmother".[2]

The sequence where the duck helps them across the river is also a later addition. In some later versions, the mother died from unknown causes, left the family, or remained with the husband at the end of the story.[12] In the 1810 pre-publication manuscript, the children were called "Little Brother" and "Little Sister", then named Hänsel and Gretel in the first edition (1812).[8] Wilhelm Grimm also adulterated the text with Alsatian dialects, "re-appropriated" from August Ströber's Alsatian version (1842) in order to give the tale a more "folksy" tone.[10][b]

Goldberg notes that although "there is no doubt that the Grimms' Hänsel und Gretel was pieced together, it was, however, pieced together from traditional elements," and its previous narrators themselves had been "piecing this little tale together with other traditional motifs for centuries."[13] For instance, the duck helping the children cross the river may be the remnant of an old traditional motif in the folktale complex that was reintroduced by the Grimms in later editions.[13]

Plot

 
Hansel and Gretel meeting the witch, by Alexander Zick.

In medieval Germany, Hansel and Gretel are the young children of a poor woodcutter. When a famine settles over the land, the woodcutter's second wife tells the woodcutter to take the children into the woods and leave them there to fend for themselves, so that she and her husband do not starve to death. The woodcutter opposes the plan, but his wife claims that maybe a stranger will take the children in and provide for them, which the woodcutter and she simply cannot do. With the scheme seemingly justified, the woodcutter reluctantly is forced to submit to it. They are unaware that in the children's bedroom, Hansel and Gretel have overheard them. After the parents have gone to bed, Hansel sneaks out of the house and gathers as many white pebbles as he can, then returns to his room, reassuring Gretel that God will not forsake them.

The next day, the family walk deep into the woods and Hansel lays a trail of white pebbles. After their parents abandon them, the children wait for the moon to rise and then follow the pebbles back home. They return home safely, much to their stepmother's rage. Once again, provisions become scarce and the stepmother angrily orders her husband to take the children further into the woods and leave them there. Hansel and Gretel attempt to gather more pebbles, but find the front door locked.

 
Illustration by Ludwig Richter, 1842

The following morning, the family treks into the woods. Hansel takes a slice of bread and leaves a trail of bread crumbs for them to follow to return back home. However, after they are once again abandoned, they find that the birds have eaten the crumbs and they are lost in the woods. After days of wandering, they follow a dove to a clearing in the woods, and discover a gingerbread house. Hungry and tired, the children begin to eat the house, when the door opens and the elderly woman that lives there emerges and lures the children inside with the promise of soft beds and delicious food. They enter without realizing that their hostess is a witch who built the gingerbread house to waylay children to cook and eat them.

The next morning, the witch locks Hansel in an iron cage in the garden and forces Gretel into becoming a slave. The witch feeds Hansel regularly to fatten him up, but serves Gretel nothing but crab shells. The witch then tries to touch Hansel's finger to see how fat he has become, but Hansel cleverly offers a thin bone he found in the cage. As the witch's eyes are too weak to notice the deception, she is fooled into thinking Hansel is still too thin to eat. After weeks of this, the witch grows impatient and decides to eat Hansel anyway.

She prepares the oven for Hansel, but decides she is hungry enough to eat Gretel, too. She coaxes Gretel to the open oven and asks her to lean over in front of it to see if the fire is hot enough. Gretel, sensing the witch's intent, pretends she does not understand what the witch means. Infuriated, the witch demonstrates, and Gretel instantly shoves her into the hot oven, slams and bolts the door shut, killing the witch. Gretel frees Hansel from the cage and the pair discover a vase full of treasure, including precious stones. Putting the jewels into their clothing, the children set off for home. A white duck (swan in some versions) ferries them across an expanse of water, and at home they find only their father; his wife having died from an unknown cause. Their father had spent all his days lamenting the loss of his children, and is delighted to see them safe and sound. With the witch's wealth, they all live happily ever after.

Variants

Folklorists Iona and Peter Opie indicate that "Hansel and Gretel" belongs to a group of European tales especially popular in the Baltic regions, about children outwitting ogres into whose hands they have involuntarily fallen.[4]

ATU 327A tales

"Hansel and Gretel" is the prototype for the fairy tales of the type Aarne–Thompson–Uther (ATU) 327A. In particular, Gretel's pretense of not understanding how to test the oven ("Show Me How") is characteristic of 327A, although it also appears traditionally in other sub-types of ATU 327.[14] As argued by Stith Thompson, the simplicity of the tale may explain its spread into several traditions all over the world.[15]

A closely similar version is "Finette Cendron", published by Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy in 1697, which depicts an impoverished king and queen deliberately losing their three daughters three times in the wilderness. The cleverest of the girls, Finette, initially manages to bring them home with a trail of thread, and then a trail of ashes, but her peas are eaten by pigeons during the third journey. The little girls then go to the mansion of a hag, who lives with her husband the ogre. Finette heats the oven and asks the ogre to test it with his tongue, so that he falls in and is incinerated. Thereafter, Finette cuts off the hag's head. The sisters remain in the ogre's house, and the rest of the tale relates the story of "Cinderella".[4][7]

In the Russian Vasilisa the Beautiful, the stepmother likewise sends her hated stepdaughter into the forest to borrow a light from her sister, who turns out to be Baba Yaga, a cannibalistic witch. Besides highlighting the endangerment of children (as well as their own cleverness), the tales have in common a preoccupation with eating and with hurting children: The mother or stepmother wants to avoid hunger, and the witch lures children to eat her house of candy so that she can then eat them.[16]

In a variant from Flanders, The Sugar-Candy House, siblings Jan and Jannette get lost in the woods and sight a hut made of confectionary in the distance. When they approach, a giant wolf named Garon jumps out of the window and chases them to a river bank. Sister and brother ask a pair of ducks to help them cross the river and escape the wolf. Garon threatens the ducks to carry him over, to no avail; he then tries to cross by swimming. He sinks and surfaces three times, but disappears in the water on the fourth try. The story seems to contain the "child/wind" rhyming scheme of the German tale.[17]

In a French fairy tale, La Cabane au Toit de Fromage ("The Hut with the Roof made of Cheese"), the brother is the hero who deceives the witch and locks her up in the oven.[18]

In the first Puerto Rican variant of "The Orphaned Children," the brother pushes the witch into the oven.[19]

Other folk tales of ATU 327A type include the French "The Lost Children", published by Antoinette Bon in 1887,[20][21] or the Moravian "Old Gruel", edited by Maria Kosch in 1899.[21]

The Children and the Ogre (ATU 327)

Structural comparisons can also be made with other tales of ATU 327 type ("The Children and the Ogre"), which is not a simple fairy tale type but rather a "folktale complex with interconnected subdivisions" depicting a child (or children) falling under the power of an ogre, then escaping by their clever tricks.[22]

In ATU 327B ("The Brothers and the Ogre"), a group of siblings come to an ogre's house who intends to kill them in their beds, but the youngest of the children exchanges the visitors with the ogre's offspring, and the villain kills his own children by mistake. They are chased by the ogre, but the siblings eventually manage to come back home safely.[23] Stith Thompson points the great similarity of the tales types ATU 327A and ATU 327B that "it is quite impossible to disentangle the two tales".[24]

ATU 327C ("The Devil [Witch] Carries the Hero Home in a Sack") depicts a witch or an ogre catching a boy in a sack. As the villain's daughter is preparing to kill him, the boy asks her to show him how he should arrange himself; when she does so, he kills her. Later on, he kills the witch and goes back home with her treasure. In ATU 327D ("The Kiddlekaddlekar"), children are discovered by an ogre in his house. He intends to hang them, but the girl pretends not to understand how to do it, so the ogre hangs himself to show her. He promises his kiddlekaddlekar (a magic cart) and treasure in exchange for his liberation; they set him free, but the ogre chases them. The children eventually manage to kill him and escape safely. In ATU 327F ("The Witch and the Fisher Boy"), a witch lures a boy and catches him. When the witch's daughter tries to bake the child, he pushes her into the oven. The witch then returns home and eats her own daughter. She eventually tries to fell the tree in which the boy is hiding, but birds fly away with him.[23]

Further comparisons

The initial episode, which depicts children deliberately lost in the forest by their unloving parents, can be compared with many previous stories: Montanus's "The Little Earth-Cow" (1557), Basile's "Ninnillo and Nennella" (1635), Madame d'Aulnoy's "Finette Cendron" (1697), or Perrault's "Hop-o'-My-Thumb" (1697). The motif of the trail that fails to lead the protagonists back home is also common to "Ninnillo and Nennella", "Finette Cendron" and "Hop-o'-My-Thumb",[25] and the Brothers Grimm identified the latter as a parallel story.[26]

Finally, ATU 327 tales share a similar structure with ATU 313 ("Sweetheart Roland", "The Foundling", "Okerlo") in that one or more protagonists (specifically children in ATU 327) come into the domain of a malevolent supernatural figure and escape from it.[23] Folklorist Joseph Jacobs, commenting on his reconstructed proto-form of the tale (Johnnie and Grizzle), noticed the "contamination" of the tale with the story of The Master Maid, later classified as ATU 313.[27] ATU 327A tales are also often combined with stories of ATU 450 ("Little Brother and Sister"), in which children run away from an abusive stepmother.[3]

Analysis

According to folklorist Jack Zipes, the tale celebrates the symbolic order of the patriarchal home, seen as a haven protected from the dangerous characters that threaten the lives of children outside, while it systematically denigrates the adult female characters, which are seemingly intertwined between each other.[5][28] The death of the mother or stepmother soon after the children kill the witch suggests that they may be metaphorically the same woman.[29] Zipes also argues that the importance of the tale in the European oral and literary tradition may be explained by the theme of child abandonment and abuse. Due to famines and lack of birth control, it was common in medieval Europe to abandon unwanted children in front of churches or in the forest. The death of the mother during childbirth sometimes led to tensions after remarriage, and Zipes proposes that it may have played a role in the emergence of the motif of the wicked stepmother.[28]

Linguist and folklorist Edward Vajda has proposed that these stories represent the remnant of a coming-of-age, rite of passage tale extant in Proto-Indo-European society.[30][31] Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim argues that the main motif revolves around dependence, oral greed, and destructive desires that children must learn to overcome, after they arrive home "purged of their oral fixations". Others have stressed the satisfying psychological effects of the children vanquishing the witch or realizing the death of their wicked stepmother.[5]

Cultural legacy

 
Staatsoper Wien 2015

Stage and musical theater

The fairy tale enjoyed a multitude of adaptations for the stage, among them the opera Hänsel und Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck—one of the most performed operas.[32] It is principally based upon the Grimm's version, although it omits the deliberate abandonment of the children.[4][5]

A contemporary reimagining of the story, Mátti Kovler's musical fairytale Ami & Tami, was produced in Israel and the United States and subsequently released as a symphonic album.[33][34]

Literature

Several writers have drawn inspiration from the tale, such as Robert Coover in "The Gingerbread House" (Pricks and Descants, 1970), Anne Sexton in Transformations (1971), Garrison Keillor in "My Stepmother, Myself" in "Happy to Be Here" (1982), and Emma Donoghue in "A Tale of the Cottage" (Kissing the Witch, 1997).[5] Adam Gidwitz's 2010 children's book A Tale Dark & Grimm and its sequels In a Glass Grimmly (2012), and The Grimm Conclusion (2013) are loosely based on the tale and show the siblings meeting characters from other fairy tales. Terry Pratchett mentions gingerbread cottages in several of his books, mainly where a witch had turned wicked and 'started to cackle', with the gingerbread house being a stage in a person's increasing levels of insanity. In The Light Fantastic the wizard Rincewind and Twoflower are led by a gnome into one such building after the death of the witch and warned to be careful of the doormat, as it is made of candy floss.

Film

Computer programming

Hansel and Gretel's trail of breadcrumbs inspired the name of the navigation element "breadcrumbs" that allows users to keep track of their locations within programs or documents.[37]

Video games

  • Hansel & Gretel and the Enchanted Castle (1995) by Terraglyph Interactive Studios is an adventure and hidden object game. The player controls Hansel, tasked with finding Prin, a forest imp, who holds the key to saving Gretel from the witch.[38]
  • Gretel and Hansel (2009) by Mako Pudding is a browser adventure game. Popular on Newgrounds for its gruesome reimagining of the story, it features hand painted watercolor backgrounds and characters animated by Flash.[39]
  • Fearful Tales: Hansel and Gretel Collector's Edition (2013) by Eipix Entertainment is a HOPA (hidden object puzzle adventure) game. The player, as Hansel and Gretel's mother, searches the witch's lair for clues.[40]
  • In the online role-playing game Poptropica, the Candy Crazed mini-quest (2021) includes a short retelling of the story. The player is summoned to the witch's castle to free the children, who have been imprisoned after eating some of the candy residents.[41]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ In German, the names are diminutives of Johannes (John) and Margarete (Margaret).
  2. ^ Zipes words it as "re-appropriated" because Ströber's Alsatian informant who provided "Das Eierkuchenhäuslein (The Little House of Pancakes)" had probably read Grimm's "Hansel and Gretel".

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b Wanning Harries 2000, p. 225.
  2. ^ a b c Ashliman, D. L. (2011). "Hansel and Gretel". University of Pittsburgh.
  3. ^ a b c d Zipes 2013, p. 121.
  4. ^ a b c d e Opie & Opie 1974, p. 236.
  5. ^ a b c d e Wanning Harries 2000, p. 227.
  6. ^ Opie & Opie 1974, p. 236; Goldberg 2000, p. 42; Wanning Harries 2000, p. 225; Zipes 2013, p. 121
  7. ^ a b Goldberg 2008, p. 439.
  8. ^ a b Goldberg 2008, p. 438.
  9. ^ Zipes (2014) tr. "Hansel and Gretel (The Complete First Edition)", pp. 43–48; Zipes (2013) tr., pp. 122–126; Brüder Grimm, ed. (1812). "15. Hänsel und Grethel" . Kinder- und Haus-Märchen (in German). Vol. 1 (1 ed.). Realschulbuchhandlung. pp. 49–58 – via Wikisource.
  10. ^ a b Zipes 2013, pp. 121–122.
  11. ^ Goldberg 2008, p. 438: "in the fourth edition, the woodcutter’s wife (who had been the children’s own mother) was first called a stepmother."
  12. ^ Tatar 2002, p. 45
  13. ^ a b Goldberg 2000, p. 51.
  14. ^ Goldberg 2008, pp. 439–440.
  15. ^ Thompson 1977, pp. 36–37.
  16. ^ Tatar 2002, p. 54
  17. ^ Bosschère, Jean de. Folk tales of Flanders. New York: Dodd, Mead. 1918. pp. 91-94.
  18. ^ Guerber, Hélène Adeline. Contes et légendes. 1ere partie. New York, Cincinnati [etc.] American book company. 1895. pp. 64-67.
  19. ^ Ocasio, Rafael (2021). Folk stories from the hills of Puerto Rico = Cuentos folklóricos de las montañas de Puerto Rico. New Brunswick. pp. 175–176. ISBN 978-1978823013.
  20. ^ Delarue 1956, p. 365.
  21. ^ a b Zipes 2013, pp. 146, 150.
  22. ^ Goldberg 2000, pp. 43.
  23. ^ a b c Goldberg 2008, p. 441.
  24. ^ Thompson 1977, p. 37.
  25. ^ Goldberg 2000, p. 44.
  26. ^ Tatar 2002, p. 72
  27. ^ Jacobs 1916, pp. 255–256.
  28. ^ a b Zipes 2013, p. 122.
  29. ^ Lüthi 1970, p. 64
  30. ^ Vajda 2010
  31. ^ Vajda 2011
  32. ^ Upton, George Putnam (1897). The Standard Operas (Google book) (12th ed.). Chicago: McClurg. pp. 125–129. ISBN 1-60303-367-X. Retrieved 15 October 2007.
  33. ^ "Composer Matti Kovler realizes dream of reviving fairy-tale opera in Boston". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2019-10-31.
  34. ^ Schwartz, Penny. "Boston goes into the woods with Israeli opera 'Ami and Tami'". Times of Israel. Retrieved 2019-10-31.
  35. ^ "Hänsel und Gretel | Der rbb macht Familienzeit - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Archived from the original on 2021-10-30. Retrieved 2020-08-26.
  36. ^ Milligan, Mercedes (2019-11-01). "Wizart Reveals 'Hansel and Gretel' Poster Art Ahead of AFM". Animation Magazine. Retrieved 2020-11-07.
  37. ^ Mark Levene (18 October 2010). An Introduction to Search Engines and Web Navigation (2nd ed.). Wiley. p. 221. ISBN 978-0470526842. Retrieved June 24, 2016.
  38. ^ "Hansel & Gretel and the Enchanted Castle for Windows (1995)".
  39. ^ "Gretel and Hansel".
  40. ^ "Fearful Tales: Hansel and Gretel Collector's Edition for iPad, iPhone, Android, Mac & PC! Big Fish is the #1 place for the best FREE games".
  41. ^ "The Candy Crazed Mini Quest is NOW LIVE!! 🍬🏰 | poptropica".

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Zipes, Jack (2014). "Hansel and Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel)". The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition. Jacob Grimm; Wilhelm Grimm (orig. eds.); Andrea Dezsö (illustr.) (Revised ed.). Princeton University Press. pp. 43–48. ISBN 978-0-691-17322-1.

Further reading

  • de Blécourt, Willem. "On the Origin of Hänsel und Gretel". In: Fabula 49, 1-2 (2008): 30-46. doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/FABL.2008.004
  • Böhm-Korff, Regina (1991). Deutung und Bedeutung von "Hänsel und Gretel": eine Fallstudie (in German). P. Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-43703-2.
  • Freudenburg, Rachel. "Illustrating Childhood—"Hansel and Gretel"." Marvels & Tales 12, no. 2 (1998): 263-318. www.jstor.org/stable/41388498.
  • Gaudreau, Jean. "Handicap et sentiment d'abandon dans trois contes de fées: Le petit Poucet, Hansel et Gretel, Jean-mon-Hérisson". In: Enfance, tome 43, n°4, 1990. pp. 395–404. [DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/enfan.1990.1957]; www.persee.fr/doc/enfan_0013-7545_1990_num_43_4_1957
  • Harshbarger, Scott. "Grimm and Grimmer: “Hansel and Gretel” and Fairy Tale Nationalism." Style 47, no. 4 (2013): 490-508. www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/style.47.4.490.
  • Mieder, Wolfgang (2007). Hänsel und Gretel: das Märchen in Kunst, Musik, Literatur, Medien und Karikaturen (in German). Praesens. ISBN 978-3-7069-0469-8.
  • Taggart, James M. ""Hansel and Gretel" in Spain and Mexico." The Journal of American Folklore 99, no. 394 (1986): 435-60. doi:10.2307/540047.
  • Zipes, Jack (1997). "The rationalization of abandonment and abuse in fairy tales: The case of Hansel and Gretel". Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children, and the Culture Industry. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-25296-0.

External links

  • Hansel and Gretel at Project Gutenberg
  • The complete set of Grimms' Fairy Tales, including Hansel and Gretel at Standard Ebooks
  • Hansel and Gretel fairy tale
  • Original versions and psychological analysis of classic fairy tales, including Hansel and Gretel
  • The Story of Hansel and Gretel
  • Collaboratively illustrated story on Project Bookses
  • https://www.grimmstories.com/en/grimm_fairy-tales/hansel_and_gretel

hansel, gretel, this, article, about, fairy, tale, other, uses, disambiguation, hansel, redirects, here, other, uses, hansel, disambiguation, german, hänsel, gretel, ˈhɛnzl, ʔʊnt, ˈɡʁeːtl, german, fairy, tale, collected, brothers, grimm, published, 1812, part,. This article is about the fairy tale For other uses see Hansel and Gretel disambiguation Hansel redirects here For other uses see Hansel disambiguation Hansel and Gretel ˈ h ae n s el ˈ h ɛ n ˈ ɡ r ɛ t el German Hansel und Gretel ˈhɛnzl ʔʊnt ˈɡʁeːtl a is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 as part of Grimm s Fairy Tales KHM 15 1 2 It is also known as Little Step Brother and Little Step Sister Hansel and GretelThe witch welcomes Hansel and Gretel into her hut Illustration by Arthur Rackham 1909 Folk taleNameHansel and GretelAarne Thompson groupingATU 327ARegionGermanPublished inKinder und Hausmarchen by the Brothers GrimmHansel and Gretel are siblings who are abandoned in a forest and fall into the hands of a witch who lives in a gingerbread cake and candy house The witch who has cannibalistic intentions intends to fatten Hansel before eventually eating him However Gretel saves her brother by pushing the witch into her own oven killing her and escaping with the witch s treasure 3 Set in medieval Germany Hansel and Gretel has been adapted into various media including the opera Hansel und Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck which was first performed in 1893 4 5 Contents 1 Origin 1 1 Sources 1 2 Editions 2 Plot 3 Variants 3 1 ATU 327A tales 3 2 The Children and the Ogre ATU 327 3 3 Further comparisons 4 Analysis 5 Cultural legacy 5 1 Stage and musical theater 5 2 Literature 5 3 Film 5 4 Computer programming 5 5 Video games 6 See also 7 Footnotes 8 References 8 1 Citations 8 2 Bibliography 8 3 Primary sources 9 Further reading 10 External linksOrigin EditSources Edit Although Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm credited various tales from Hesse the region where they lived as their source scholars have argued that the brothers heard the story in 1809 from the family of Wilhelm s friend and future wife Dortchen Wild and partly from other sources 6 A handwritten note in the Grimms personal copy of the first edition reveals that in 1813 Wild contributed to the children s verse answer to the witch The wind the wind The heavenly child which rhymes in German Der Wind der Wind Das himmlische Kind 2 According to folklorist Jack Zipes the tale emerged in the Late Middle Ages Germany 1250 1500 Shortly after this period close written variants like Martin Montanus Garten Gesellschaft 1590 began to appear 3 Scholar Christine Goldberg argues that the episode of the paths marked with stones and crumbs already found in the French Finette Cendron and Hop o My Thumb 1697 represents an elaboration of the motif of the thread that Ariadne gives Theseus to use to get out of the Minoan labyrinth 7 A house made of confectionery is also found in a 14th century manuscript about the Land of Cockayne 4 Editions Edit Sculpture of Hansel on the duck by Ignatius Taschner Marchenbrunnen Berlin From the pre publication manuscript of 1810 Das Bruderchen und das Schwesterchen to the sixth edition of Kinder und Hausmarchen Grimm s Fairy Tales in 1850 the Brothers Grimm made several alterations to the story which progressively gained in length psychological motivation and visual imagery 8 but also became more Christian in tone shifting the blame for abandonment from a mother to a stepmother associated with the witch 1 3 In the original edition of the tale the woodcutter s wife is the children s biological mother 9 but she was also called stepmother from the 4th edition 1840 10 11 The Brothers Grimm indeed introduced the word stepmother but retained mother in some passages Even their final version in the 7th edition 1857 remains unclear about her role for it refers to the woodcutter s wife twice as the mother and once as the stepmother 2 The sequence where the duck helps them across the river is also a later addition In some later versions the mother died from unknown causes left the family or remained with the husband at the end of the story 12 In the 1810 pre publication manuscript the children were called Little Brother and Little Sister then named Hansel and Gretel in the first edition 1812 8 Wilhelm Grimm also adulterated the text with Alsatian dialects re appropriated from August Strober s Alsatian version 1842 in order to give the tale a more folksy tone 10 b Goldberg notes that although there is no doubt that the Grimms Hansel und Gretel was pieced together it was however pieced together from traditional elements and its previous narrators themselves had been piecing this little tale together with other traditional motifs for centuries 13 For instance the duck helping the children cross the river may be the remnant of an old traditional motif in the folktale complex that was reintroduced by the Grimms in later editions 13 Plot Edit Hansel and Gretel meeting the witch by Alexander Zick In medieval Germany Hansel and Gretel are the young children of a poor woodcutter When a famine settles over the land the woodcutter s second wife tells the woodcutter to take the children into the woods and leave them there to fend for themselves so that she and her husband do not starve to death The woodcutter opposes the plan but his wife claims that maybe a stranger will take the children in and provide for them which the woodcutter and she simply cannot do With the scheme seemingly justified the woodcutter reluctantly is forced to submit to it They are unaware that in the children s bedroom Hansel and Gretel have overheard them After the parents have gone to bed Hansel sneaks out of the house and gathers as many white pebbles as he can then returns to his room reassuring Gretel that God will not forsake them The next day the family walk deep into the woods and Hansel lays a trail of white pebbles After their parents abandon them the children wait for the moon to rise and then follow the pebbles back home They return home safely much to their stepmother s rage Once again provisions become scarce and the stepmother angrily orders her husband to take the children further into the woods and leave them there Hansel and Gretel attempt to gather more pebbles but find the front door locked Illustration by Ludwig Richter 1842 The following morning the family treks into the woods Hansel takes a slice of bread and leaves a trail of bread crumbs for them to follow to return back home However after they are once again abandoned they find that the birds have eaten the crumbs and they are lost in the woods After days of wandering they follow a dove to a clearing in the woods and discover a gingerbread house Hungry and tired the children begin to eat the house when the door opens and the elderly woman that lives there emerges and lures the children inside with the promise of soft beds and delicious food They enter without realizing that their hostess is a witch who built the gingerbread house to waylay children to cook and eat them The next morning the witch locks Hansel in an iron cage in the garden and forces Gretel into becoming a slave The witch feeds Hansel regularly to fatten him up but serves Gretel nothing but crab shells The witch then tries to touch Hansel s finger to see how fat he has become but Hansel cleverly offers a thin bone he found in the cage As the witch s eyes are too weak to notice the deception she is fooled into thinking Hansel is still too thin to eat After weeks of this the witch grows impatient and decides to eat Hansel anyway She prepares the oven for Hansel but decides she is hungry enough to eat Gretel too She coaxes Gretel to the open oven and asks her to lean over in front of it to see if the fire is hot enough Gretel sensing the witch s intent pretends she does not understand what the witch means Infuriated the witch demonstrates and Gretel instantly shoves her into the hot oven slams and bolts the door shut killing the witch Gretel frees Hansel from the cage and the pair discover a vase full of treasure including precious stones Putting the jewels into their clothing the children set off for home A white duck swan in some versions ferries them across an expanse of water and at home they find only their father his wife having died from an unknown cause Their father had spent all his days lamenting the loss of his children and is delighted to see them safe and sound With the witch s wealth they all live happily ever after Variants EditFolklorists Iona and Peter Opie indicate that Hansel and Gretel belongs to a group of European tales especially popular in the Baltic regions about children outwitting ogres into whose hands they have involuntarily fallen 4 ATU 327A tales Edit Hansel and Gretel is the prototype for the fairy tales of the type Aarne Thompson Uther ATU 327A In particular Gretel s pretense of not understanding how to test the oven Show Me How is characteristic of 327A although it also appears traditionally in other sub types of ATU 327 14 As argued by Stith Thompson the simplicity of the tale may explain its spread into several traditions all over the world 15 A closely similar version is Finette Cendron published by Marie Catherine d Aulnoy in 1697 which depicts an impoverished king and queen deliberately losing their three daughters three times in the wilderness The cleverest of the girls Finette initially manages to bring them home with a trail of thread and then a trail of ashes but her peas are eaten by pigeons during the third journey The little girls then go to the mansion of a hag who lives with her husband the ogre Finette heats the oven and asks the ogre to test it with his tongue so that he falls in and is incinerated Thereafter Finette cuts off the hag s head The sisters remain in the ogre s house and the rest of the tale relates the story of Cinderella 4 7 In the Russian Vasilisa the Beautiful the stepmother likewise sends her hated stepdaughter into the forest to borrow a light from her sister who turns out to be Baba Yaga a cannibalistic witch Besides highlighting the endangerment of children as well as their own cleverness the tales have in common a preoccupation with eating and with hurting children The mother or stepmother wants to avoid hunger and the witch lures children to eat her house of candy so that she can then eat them 16 In a variant from Flanders The Sugar Candy House siblings Jan and Jannette get lost in the woods and sight a hut made of confectionary in the distance When they approach a giant wolf named Garon jumps out of the window and chases them to a river bank Sister and brother ask a pair of ducks to help them cross the river and escape the wolf Garon threatens the ducks to carry him over to no avail he then tries to cross by swimming He sinks and surfaces three times but disappears in the water on the fourth try The story seems to contain the child wind rhyming scheme of the German tale 17 In a French fairy tale La Cabane au Toit de Fromage The Hut with the Roof made of Cheese the brother is the hero who deceives the witch and locks her up in the oven 18 In the first Puerto Rican variant of The Orphaned Children the brother pushes the witch into the oven 19 Other folk tales of ATU 327A type include the French The Lost Children published by Antoinette Bon in 1887 20 21 or the Moravian Old Gruel edited by Maria Kosch in 1899 21 The Children and the Ogre ATU 327 Edit Structural comparisons can also be made with other tales of ATU 327 type The Children and the Ogre which is not a simple fairy tale type but rather a folktale complex with interconnected subdivisions depicting a child or children falling under the power of an ogre then escaping by their clever tricks 22 In ATU 327B The Brothers and the Ogre a group of siblings come to an ogre s house who intends to kill them in their beds but the youngest of the children exchanges the visitors with the ogre s offspring and the villain kills his own children by mistake They are chased by the ogre but the siblings eventually manage to come back home safely 23 Stith Thompson points the great similarity of the tales types ATU 327A and ATU 327B that it is quite impossible to disentangle the two tales 24 ATU 327C The Devil Witch Carries the Hero Home in a Sack depicts a witch or an ogre catching a boy in a sack As the villain s daughter is preparing to kill him the boy asks her to show him how he should arrange himself when she does so he kills her Later on he kills the witch and goes back home with her treasure In ATU 327D The Kiddlekaddlekar children are discovered by an ogre in his house He intends to hang them but the girl pretends not to understand how to do it so the ogre hangs himself to show her He promises his kiddlekaddlekar a magic cart and treasure in exchange for his liberation they set him free but the ogre chases them The children eventually manage to kill him and escape safely In ATU 327F The Witch and the Fisher Boy a witch lures a boy and catches him When the witch s daughter tries to bake the child he pushes her into the oven The witch then returns home and eats her own daughter She eventually tries to fell the tree in which the boy is hiding but birds fly away with him 23 Further comparisons Edit The initial episode which depicts children deliberately lost in the forest by their unloving parents can be compared with many previous stories Montanus s The Little Earth Cow 1557 Basile s Ninnillo and Nennella 1635 Madame d Aulnoy s Finette Cendron 1697 or Perrault s Hop o My Thumb 1697 The motif of the trail that fails to lead the protagonists back home is also common to Ninnillo and Nennella Finette Cendron and Hop o My Thumb 25 and the Brothers Grimm identified the latter as a parallel story 26 Finally ATU 327 tales share a similar structure with ATU 313 Sweetheart Roland The Foundling Okerlo in that one or more protagonists specifically children in ATU 327 come into the domain of a malevolent supernatural figure and escape from it 23 Folklorist Joseph Jacobs commenting on his reconstructed proto form of the tale Johnnie and Grizzle noticed the contamination of the tale with the story of The Master Maid later classified as ATU 313 27 ATU 327A tales are also often combined with stories of ATU 450 Little Brother and Sister in which children run away from an abusive stepmother 3 Analysis EditAccording to folklorist Jack Zipes the tale celebrates the symbolic order of the patriarchal home seen as a haven protected from the dangerous characters that threaten the lives of children outside while it systematically denigrates the adult female characters which are seemingly intertwined between each other 5 28 The death of the mother or stepmother soon after the children kill the witch suggests that they may be metaphorically the same woman 29 Zipes also argues that the importance of the tale in the European oral and literary tradition may be explained by the theme of child abandonment and abuse Due to famines and lack of birth control it was common in medieval Europe to abandon unwanted children in front of churches or in the forest The death of the mother during childbirth sometimes led to tensions after remarriage and Zipes proposes that it may have played a role in the emergence of the motif of the wicked stepmother 28 Linguist and folklorist Edward Vajda has proposed that these stories represent the remnant of a coming of age rite of passage tale extant in Proto Indo European society 30 31 Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim argues that the main motif revolves around dependence oral greed and destructive desires that children must learn to overcome after they arrive home purged of their oral fixations Others have stressed the satisfying psychological effects of the children vanquishing the witch or realizing the death of their wicked stepmother 5 Cultural legacy Edit Staatsoper Wien 2015 Stage and musical theater Edit The fairy tale enjoyed a multitude of adaptations for the stage among them the opera Hansel und Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck one of the most performed operas 32 It is principally based upon the Grimm s version although it omits the deliberate abandonment of the children 4 5 A contemporary reimagining of the story Matti Kovler s musical fairytale Ami amp Tami was produced in Israel and the United States and subsequently released as a symphonic album 33 34 Literature Edit Several writers have drawn inspiration from the tale such as Robert Coover in The Gingerbread House Pricks and Descants 1970 Anne Sexton in Transformations 1971 Garrison Keillor in My Stepmother Myself in Happy to Be Here 1982 and Emma Donoghue in A Tale of the Cottage Kissing the Witch 1997 5 Adam Gidwitz s 2010 children s book A Tale Dark amp Grimm and its sequels In a Glass Grimmly 2012 and The Grimm Conclusion 2013 are loosely based on the tale and show the siblings meeting characters from other fairy tales Terry Pratchett mentions gingerbread cottages in several of his books mainly where a witch had turned wicked and started to cackle with the gingerbread house being a stage in a person s increasing levels of insanity In The Light Fantastic the wizard Rincewind and Twoflower are led by a gnome into one such building after the death of the witch and warned to be careful of the doormat as it is made of candy floss Film Edit Hansel and Gretel An Opera Fantasy a 1954 stop motion animated theatrical feature film directed by John Paul and released by RKO Radio Pictures A 1983 episode of Shelley Duvall s Faerie Tale Theatre starred Ricky Schroder as Hansel and Joan Collins as the stepmother witch Hansel and Gretel a 1983 TV special directed by Tim Burton Hansel and Gretel a 1987 American Israeli musical film directed by Len Talan with David Warner Cloris Leachman Hugh Pollard and Nicola Stapleton Part of the 1980s film series Cannon Movie Tales Elements from the story were used in the 1994 horror film Wes Craven s New Nightmare for its climax Hansel und Gretel 35 by 2012 German Broadcaster RBB released as part of its series Der rbb macht Familienzeit Hansel amp Gretel Witch Hunters 2013 by Tommy Wirkola with Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton USA Germany The film follows the adventures of Hansel amp Gretel who became adults Gretel amp Hansel a 2020 American horror film directed by Oz Perkins in which Gretel is a teenager while Hansel is still a little boy Secret Magic Control Agency 2021 is an animated retelling of the fairy tale by incorporating comedy and family genres 36 Computer programming Edit Hansel and Gretel s trail of breadcrumbs inspired the name of the navigation element breadcrumbs that allows users to keep track of their locations within programs or documents 37 Video games Edit Hansel amp Gretel and the Enchanted Castle 1995 by Terraglyph Interactive Studios is an adventure and hidden object game The player controls Hansel tasked with finding Prin a forest imp who holds the key to saving Gretel from the witch 38 Gretel and Hansel 2009 by Mako Pudding is a browser adventure game Popular on Newgrounds for its gruesome reimagining of the story it features hand painted watercolor backgrounds and characters animated by Flash 39 Fearful Tales Hansel and Gretel Collector s Edition 2013 by Eipix Entertainment is a HOPA hidden object puzzle adventure game The player as Hansel and Gretel s mother searches the witch s lair for clues 40 In the online role playing game Poptropica the Candy Crazed mini quest 2021 includes a short retelling of the story The player is summoned to the witch s castle to free the children who have been imprisoned after eating some of the candy residents 41 See also Edit Children s literature portal Germany portal Fantasy portal Brother and Sister Esben and the Witch Gingerbread house Hop o My Thumb French fairy tale by Charles Perrault The Hut in the Forest Jorinde and Joringel Molly Whuppie Thirteenth The Truth About Hansel and GretelFootnotes Edit In German the names are diminutives of Johannes John and Margarete Margaret Zipes words it as re appropriated because Strober s Alsatian informant who provided Das Eierkuchenhauslein The Little House of Pancakes had probably read Grimm s Hansel and Gretel References EditCitations Edit a b Wanning Harries 2000 p 225 a b c Ashliman D L 2011 Hansel and Gretel University of Pittsburgh a b c d Zipes 2013 p 121 a b c d e Opie amp Opie 1974 p 236 a b c d e Wanning Harries 2000 p 227 Opie amp Opie 1974 p 236 Goldberg 2000 p 42 Wanning Harries 2000 p 225 Zipes 2013 p 121 a b Goldberg 2008 p 439 a b Goldberg 2008 p 438 Zipes 2014 tr Hansel and Gretel The Complete First Edition pp 43 48 Zipes 2013 tr pp 122 126 Bruder Grimm ed 1812 15 Hansel und Grethel Kinder und Haus Marchen in German Vol 1 1 ed Realschulbuchhandlung pp 49 58 via Wikisource a b Zipes 2013 pp 121 122 Goldberg 2008 p 438 in the fourth edition the woodcutter s wife who had been the children s own mother was first called a stepmother Tatar 2002 p 45 a b Goldberg 2000 p 51 Goldberg 2008 pp 439 440 Thompson 1977 pp 36 37 Tatar 2002 p 54 Bosschere Jean de Folk tales of Flanders New York Dodd Mead 1918 pp 91 94 Guerber Helene Adeline Contes et legendes 1ere partie New York Cincinnati etc American book company 1895 pp 64 67 Ocasio Rafael 2021 Folk stories from the hills of Puerto Rico Cuentos folkloricos de las montanas de Puerto Rico New Brunswick pp 175 176 ISBN 978 1978823013 Delarue 1956 p 365 a b Zipes 2013 pp 146 150 Goldberg 2000 pp 43 a b c Goldberg 2008 p 441 Thompson 1977 p 37 Goldberg 2000 p 44 Tatar 2002 p 72 Jacobs 1916 pp 255 256 a b Zipes 2013 p 122 Luthi 1970 p 64 Vajda 2010 Vajda 2011 Upton George Putnam 1897 The Standard Operas Google book 12th ed Chicago McClurg pp 125 129 ISBN 1 60303 367 X Retrieved 15 October 2007 Composer Matti Kovler realizes dream of reviving fairy tale opera in Boston The Boston Globe Retrieved 2019 10 31 Schwartz Penny Boston goes into the woods with Israeli opera Ami and Tami Times of Israel Retrieved 2019 10 31 Hansel und Gretel Der rbb macht Familienzeit YouTube www youtube com Archived from the original on 2021 10 30 Retrieved 2020 08 26 Milligan Mercedes 2019 11 01 Wizart Reveals Hansel and Gretel Poster Art Ahead of AFM Animation Magazine Retrieved 2020 11 07 Mark Levene 18 October 2010 An Introduction to Search Engines and Web Navigation 2nd ed Wiley p 221 ISBN 978 0470526842 Retrieved June 24 2016 Hansel amp Gretel and the Enchanted Castle for Windows 1995 Gretel and Hansel Fearful Tales Hansel and Gretel Collector s Edition for iPad iPhone Android Mac amp PC Big Fish is the 1 place for the best FREE games The Candy Crazed Mini Quest is NOW LIVE poptropica Bibliography Edit Delarue Paul 1956 The Borzoi Book of French Folk Tales Alfred A Knopf Inc Goldberg Christine 2000 Gretel s Duck The Escape from the Ogre in AaTh 327 Fabula 41 1 2 42 51 doi 10 1515 fabl 2000 41 1 2 42 S2CID 163082145 Goldberg Christine 2008 Hansel and Gretel In Haase Donald ed The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales Greenwood ISBN 978 0 313 04947 7 Jacobs Joseph 1916 European Folk and Fairy Tales G P Putnam s sons Luthi Max 1970 Once Upon A Time On the Nature of Fairy Tales Frederick Ungar Publishing Co ISBN 9780804425650 Opie Iona Opie Peter 1974 The Classic Fairy Tales Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 211559 1 Tatar Maria 2002 The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales BCA ISBN 978 0 393 05163 6 Thompson Stith 1977 The Folktale University of California Press ISBN 978 0 520 03537 9 Vajda Edward 2010 The Classic Russian Fairy Tale More Than a Bedtime Story Speech The World s Classics Western Washington University Vajda Edward 2011 The Russian Fairy Tale Ancient Culture in a Modern Context Speech Center for International Studies International Lecture Series Western Washington University Wanning Harries Elizabeth 2000 Hansel and Gretel In Zipel Jack ed The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 968982 8 Zipes Jack 2013 Abandoned Children ATU 327A Hansel and Gretel The Golden Age of Folk and Fairy Tales From the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang Hackett Publishing pp 121ff ISBN 978 1 624 66034 4 Primary sources Edit Zipes Jack 2014 Hansel and Gretel Hansel und Gretel The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm The Complete First Edition Jacob Grimm Wilhelm Grimm orig eds Andrea Dezso illustr Revised ed Princeton University Press pp 43 48 ISBN 978 0 691 17322 1 Further reading Editde Blecourt Willem On the Origin of Hansel und Gretel In Fabula 49 1 2 2008 30 46 doi https doi org 10 1515 FABL 2008 004 Bohm Korff Regina 1991 Deutung und Bedeutung von Hansel und Gretel eine Fallstudie in German P Lang ISBN 978 3 631 43703 2 Freudenburg Rachel Illustrating Childhood Hansel and Gretel Marvels amp Tales 12 no 2 1998 263 318 www jstor org stable 41388498 Gaudreau Jean Handicap et sentiment d abandon dans trois contes de fees Le petit Poucet Hansel et Gretel Jean mon Herisson In Enfance tome 43 n 4 1990 pp 395 404 DOI https doi org 10 3406 enfan 1990 1957 www persee fr doc enfan 0013 7545 1990 num 43 4 1957 Harshbarger Scott Grimm and Grimmer Hansel and Gretel and Fairy Tale Nationalism Style 47 no 4 2013 490 508 www jstor org stable 10 5325 style 47 4 490 Mieder Wolfgang 2007 Hansel und Gretel das Marchen in Kunst Musik Literatur Medien und Karikaturen in German Praesens ISBN 978 3 7069 0469 8 Taggart James M Hansel and Gretel in Spain and Mexico The Journal of American Folklore 99 no 394 1986 435 60 doi 10 2307 540047 Zipes Jack 1997 The rationalization of abandonment and abuse in fairy tales The case of Hansel and Gretel Happily Ever After Fairy Tales Children and the Culture Industry Routledge ISBN 978 1 135 25296 0 External links Edit Wikisource has original text related to this article Hansel and Gretel Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hansel and Gretel Hansel and Gretel at Project Gutenberg The complete set of Grimms Fairy Tales including Hansel and Gretel at Standard Ebooks Hansel and Gretel fairy tale Original versions and psychological analysis of classic fairy tales including Hansel and Gretel The Story of Hansel and Gretel Collaboratively illustrated story on Project Bookses https www grimmstories com en grimm fairy tales hansel and gretel Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Hansel and Gretel amp oldid 1143356957, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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