Hansel and Gretel

Rumpelstiltskin's life may have ended after he lost his bargain with Cinderella, but his impact remained. Unbeknownst to many citizens of the kingdom, Rumpelstiltskin had a wife back home in his little hut that was isolated on the edge of town. Rumpelstilstkin's begging and manipulation was what provided for the two of them; his wife, who had poor eyesight, could not get a job and instead worked alone in their little house. Her greatest pleasure in life was baking; she had memorized their whole kitchen and could bake the most delicious desserts without having to see the ingredients. Every week, a salesman from out of town stopped by their house and delivered flour, sugar, eggs-- anything the woman would need to make all her food-- and that, along with Rumpelstiltskin's company, was the only interaction the woman had with other people.

When Rumpelstiltskin died, his wife sat around for many weeks, wondering where he might have gone. The salesman, having no idea what happened to Rumpelstiltskin (but taking pity on the woman's loneliness), kept bringing the woman baking ingredients so she wouldn't starve. Eventually, those lonely weeks turned into years. The woman's isolation became too much for her to bear; she aged at twice the rate of a normal person, baked nonstop to keep herself busy, and decorated her own house with all her baking creations to find a place to put all her food!

At last, one day when the (now old) woman thought she would never have any more guests again, she heard two voices outside of her house.

"Gretel, look! It's a house made of candy...here, I'm starving. You eat this roof made of cake, and I'll have some of this sugar window. I knew we were bound to get lucky at some point!"

"Hansel, do you think Mom and Dad will come back for us? Should we try and find the bread crumbs and follow the trail? I'm scared!"

A smile crept across the old woman's face. She could hardly contain her glee-- visitors, and children, too! A strange thought crossed her mind. The old woman had only had sweet treats to eat for years because she could only bake; she didn't know how to cook meats and savory food well. For a moment, she wondered how the children would taste!

Before she lost her courage (and before the children wandered away), the old woman called outside.

"Children, you must be lost and hungry! Come on inside. I'll give you a warm place to stay, and plenty of food, too! Don't be shy."

Hansel and Gretel came inside, exhausted and sad from their parents' abandonment, and the old woman made them the best meal she could think of. Pancakes, birthday cake, ice cream, gumdrops--everything sweet the children could dream up.

Stuffed to the brim, Hansel and Gretel thanked the old woman and fell into a deep sleep. While they slept, the old woman prepared all night. She liked having new people at her house, and she didn't want them to leave! She decided to make a plan to keep them there and eat them. The woman spent the whole night building a cage; it took her forever to find the tools, but the children were sleeping so deeply that she never woke them up.

In the morning, the old woman grabbed Hansel and locked him up in the cage. Shaking Gretel awake, she demanded that Gretel help her with her baking. No matter how much they cried and begged, the old woman would not let Hansel and Gretel go.

Every day, Hansel would get the biggest serving of all the food the old woman could possibly bake. And every night, she demanded Hansel stick his finger though the cage to see if he was fat enough to eat. Hansel, outwitting the old woman, had found a diamond hairpin near his cage and stuck that out of the cage bars. Rumpelstiltskin had brought back this diamond hairpin from his bargain with Cinderella as a gift to his wife. However, as Rumpelstiltskin was now dead and the old woman's eyesight was poor, she had lost track of it. When Hansel stuck the skinny hairpin through the cage, the old woman thought that Hansel wasn't fattening up at all.

After weeks of the children's company, the old woman began to grow weary. She hadn't talked to anyone in a number of years, and having the children around exhausted her. They talked constantly of their old life, of their mother and father, of how poor they were but how they would go back in a heartbeat rather than staying here-- even with all the food they could want. Finally, she decided to eat Hansel, even if he was skinny, just to get back to peace and quiet.

"Now, Gretel, fetch me some water. I am going to boil Hansel and eat him!" the old woman demanded.

Gretel, sobbing the whole time, helped the old woman build a fire and boil the water for Hansel. As the flames burned brighter, the old woman had an idea. She had planned on just eating Hansel, but her stomach was grumbling!

"Gretel, get in the oven and check to see if the flames are hot enough," the woman said.

Gretel, seeing that the witch wanted to cook her too, decided to play dumb. "I don't know how to do that. Can't you check them yourself?" she asked.

"Must I do everything myself? See, you just hop in like this-- even I could fit in this oven!" The woman stuck her head in the oven, and Gretel, seeing a chance for escape, pushed her into the oven and shut the door.

The old woman howled as she burnt up, and Gretel ran to Hansel's cage and released him. Hansel grabbed the diamond hairpin, and they both carried out as much food as they could. They ran far away from Rumpelstiltskin and the woman's little hut. Eventually, they found their way back to their old house, and Hansel gave the diamond hairpin to his father. This pin provided enough money for them to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. They no longer needed to worry about having enough food, and they lived happily ever after.

Author's note: For this story, I changed quite a bit, especially near the beginning. In the Grimm version of the story, Hansel and Gretel's mother decides to drop them off in the middle of the woods alone twice so that the mother and father don't have to feed the children (because there's a famine in the land). The first time, they find their way back because Hansel left stones in a trail; the second time, he leaves bread crumbs and the crumbs get eaten by animals. I added in the part about Rumpelstiltskin being the old woman's husband; in the Grimm version, the old woman is a random witch. I also added in a lot of backstory for the old woman; in my story, she is a baker, is lonely because of her husband's death, wants to eat the children because she's tired of their company, and tires of eating sweets all the time, but these details are not in the Grimm version.

In the Grimm version, Hansel sticks out a bone as his finger, but I wanted to add in the diamond hairpin from Rumpelstiltskin's story. At the end, Hansel and Gretel take back treasures from the witch to their father, but I changed it to the hairpin because it made more sense in my story.

I didn't focus as much on Hansel and Gretel and their family in my story; in the original, the mother was the one dictating how the children should be left out to starve, and the father was sympathetic and regretted leaving them in the woods. I listened to comments on my comment wall and wanted to focus more on the villain's story for this one, so I left out a lot of details about Hansel and Gretel themselves and focused more on the old woman. I kept the ending similar to the Grimm ending (with Gretel pushing the woman into the oven) because I thought that fit well and was an important part of the original story.

Hansel and Gretel by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, translated by D.L. Ashliman: pitt.edu

Image information: Hansel and Gretel image by Arthur Rackham: wikimedia