Now, Hansel and Gretel had been so hungry that night that they hadn’t been able to sleep either, and they’d heard every cruel word of their stepmother’s terrible plan. Gretel cried bitter, salt tears, and said to Hansel, ‘Now we’re finished.’ But Hansel comforted her. ‘Don’t cry, Gretel. Don’t be sad. I’ll think of a way to save us.’ And when their father and stepmother had finally gone to sleep, Hansel got up, put on his coat, opened the back door, and crept out into the midnight hour. There was bright, sparkling moonlight outside and the white pebbles on the ground shone like silver coins and precious jewels. Hansel bent down and filled his empty pockets with as many pebbles as he could carry. Then he went back inside and said to Gretel, ‘Don’t worry, Gretel, you can go to sleep now. We’ll be fine, I promise.’ And he got back into bed.
At dawn, before the sun had properly risen, their stepmother came and woke the two children. ‘Get up, you lazy scraps, we’re going into the forest to chop wood.’ Then she gave each of them a miserable mouthful of bread. ‘There’s your lunch – think yourselves lucky, and don’t eat it all at once, because there’s nothing else.’ Gretel put the bread in her apron pocket, because Hansel’s pockets were crammed with pebbles. Then the whole family set off along the path to the forest. Hansel kept stopping and looking back towards the house, until finally the woodcutter called to him, ‘Hansel, what are you trailing behind for and looking at? Keep up with the rest of us.’ ‘Sorry, Father,’ said Hansel, ‘I’m just looking back at my white kitten. It’s sitting up there on our roof, saying goodbye.’ ‘You stupid boy,’ said his stepmother. ‘That’s not your kitten. It’s just the light of the morning sun glinting on the chimney. Now come on.’ But, of course, Hansel hadn’t been looking at anything at all. He’d been throwing the white pebbles from his pocket onto the path.
The forest was immense and gloomy. When they had reached the middle, the woodcutter said, ‘Now, Hansel, now, Gretel, gather up some wood and I’ll make a nice fire to keep you warm.’ Hansel and Gretel collected a big pile of firewood and when it was set alight and the flames were like burning tongues, their stepmother said, ‘Now lie down by the fire and rest. We’re going further into the forest to chop wood. When we’re finished working, we’ll come back and get you.’ The children sat by the fire, and when midday came, they chewed on their small portions of bread. They could hear the blows of a woodcutter’s axe nearby and they thought that their father was close. But it wasn’t an axe, it was just a branch that he had tied to an old, withered tree and the wind was blowing it to and fro, to and fro. After they had waited and waited and waited, the children’s eyes grew as heavy as worry and they fell fast asleep.
When at last they woke up, it was already pitch dark, darker than a nightmare. Gretel began to cry and said, ‘How are we going to find our way out of this enormous forest?’ But Hansel tried to cheer her up. ‘Just wait a bit till the moon rises, Gretel, then we’ll find our way home all right.’ And when the moon had risen, casting its brilliant, magical light, Hansel took his little sister by the hand and followed the pebbles. They shone like newly minted coins, like cats’ eyes, like diamonds, and showed them the way. They walked all through the night, and at daybreak they knocked on the door of their father’s house. When their stepmother opened it and saw it was Hansel and Gretel, she said, ‘You naughty children! Why did you sleep so long in the forest? We thought you were never coming home.’ But their father was pleased to have them back again, for he had been grief-stricken at leaving them all by themselves in the forest.
Not long afterwards, times became very hard again and the famine bit deeply and savagely into their lives. One night, when they all lay in bed with gnawing stomachs, the children heard their stepmother’s ravenous voice again, ‘There’s no more food left except half a loaf of bread, and when that’s gone that’ll be the end of all of us. The children must go, I tell you. Tomorrow first thing, we’ll take them even deeper, deeper, right into the belly of the forest so they won’t possibly be able to find their way out. It’s our only way of saving ourselves.’ Although the woodcutter grew very upset and thought that it was better to share your last crumb with your children, his wife wouldn’t listen to a word he said. Her sharp voice pecked on and on at him, ‘You did it before so you’ll do it again. You did it before so you’ll do it again.’ And in the end, the poor starving woodcutter gave in.
Once more, Hansel waited till his parents fell asleep, and then he got up and tried to get out to collect his pebbles like the last time. But the stepmother had locked and bolted the door and Hansel couldn’t get out, no matter how hard he tried. He had to go back to bed empty-handed and comfort his little sister. ‘No more tears, Gretel,’ he said. ‘Just try to sleep. I know somehow I’ll find something to help us.’
It was very, very early when their stepmother came and poked the children out of bed. She gave them each a piece of bread, but they were even smaller pieces than before. On the way to the forest, Hansel crumbled his bit of bread in his pocket, and kept pausing to throw a crumb on the ground. ‘Hansel, why do you keep stopping and looking behind you?’ said the woodcutter. ‘Get a move on.’ ‘I’m only looking back at my little dove, Father,’ said Hansel. ‘It’s sitting on our roof trying to say goodbye to me.’ ‘You idiotic boy,’ snapped his stepmother, ‘that isn’t your dove. It’s the sun shining on the chimneypot.’ But carefully, one tiny crumb at a time, Hansel laid a lifeline of bread on the path.
And now the stepmother had led the children right into the deepest, densest part of the forest, to where they had never been in their whole lives. A big, licking fire was lit again and she told them, ‘You two sit here and wait, and if you get tired you can go to sleep. Your father and I are going further off to chop wood. And in the evening when we’re finished, we’ll come and fetch you.’
After a while, Gretel shared her miserly lump of bread with Hansel, who had scattered his piece on the path. Then they fell asleep, and the long evening passed, but nobody came to take them home. The night grew darker and darker, and when they woke up, it was too black to see a thing. ‘Don’t worry, Gretel,’ said Hansel. ‘When the moon rises, we’ll see the breadcrumbs I dropped. They’ll show us our way.’ As soon as the full moon came, glowing and luminous, the two children set off.
But they didn’t find a single breadcrumb, because all the thousands of birds that fly about in the forest had pecked them away and eaten them. Hansel said to Gretel, ‘Don’t panic, we’ll find our way anyway.’ But they didn’t find it. They walked all night and all the following day, and by the next evening they were still hopelessly lost in the bowels of the forest. What’s worse, they were hungrier than they had ever been in their skinny young lives, because they had nothing to eat except for a few berries they’d managed to scavenge. Eventually, Hansel and Gretel were so weak and exhausted that their legs wouldn’t carry them one step further. So they lay down under a tree and fell fast asleep.
It was now the third morning since they had left their father. The famished, thirsty children forced themselves to walk again, but they only wandered further and further into the forest, and they knew that unless they found help very soon they would die of hunger. When it was midday, they saw a beautiful white bird singing on a branch, and the bird’s song was so enchanting that Hansel and Gretel stopped to listen to it. As soon as its song was over, the bird flapped its creamy wings and flew off in front of them, and they followed it till it landed on the roof of a little house. When Hansel and Gretel got closer, they saw that the house had bread walls and a roof made of cake and windows made of clear bright sugar. ‘Look!’ cried Hansel. ‘This will do us! What wonderful luck! I’ll try a slice of the roof, Gretel, and you can start on a window. I bet it’ll taste scrumptiously sweet.’ Hansel stretched up and broke off a bit of the roof to see what it tasted like, and Gretel snapped off a piece of window-pane and nibbled away. Suddenly, they heard a thin little voice calling from inside:
‘Stop your nibbling, little rat,
&nbs
p; It’s my house you’re gnawing at.’
But the chomping children chanted:
‘We’re only the wind going past,
Gently blowing on roof and glass.’
And they just went on munching away. Hansel thought the roof was absolutely delicious and pulled off a great slab of it. Gretel bashed out a whole round window-pane and sat down and had a wonderful chewy time. Then suddenly, the door opened and an old, old woman, bent double on a crutch, came creeping out. Hansel was so scared and Gretel was so frightened that they both dropped what they were holding. But the old woman wagged her wizened head and said, ‘Well, well, you sweet little things, how did you get here? Come in and stay with me. You’ll come to no harm.’ She took the children by the hand and led them into the tempting house. Then she gave them a wonderful meal of creamy milk and mouth-watering pancakes with sugar and chocolate and apples and nuts. After Hansel and Gretel had eaten as much as they could, she made up two soft, comfy little beds with the best white linen, and Hansel and Gretel lay down to sleep.
But the old crone was only pretending to be kind, for she was really a cruel and evil witch who lay in wait for children and had only built her bread house with its cake roof to trap them. When a child fell into her power, she would kill it, cook it and eat it, and that was her favourite banquet. Witches have red eyes which they can’t see very far with – but they have a powerful sense of smell, as good as any animal’s, and they can sniff when anyone comes near them. So as Hansel and Gretel had approached her little house in the woods, she’d cackled a spiteful laugh and said nastily, ‘Here’s two for my belly who shan’t escape.’
Early next morning before the children had woken, she was already drooling by their beds, looking greedily down at them. They looked so sweet lying there with their rosy cheeks that she slavered to herself, ‘This will make a tasty scram for me to swallow.’ Then she seized Hansel with her long claws and dragged him off to a mean shed outside and locked him up behind the door with iron bars. Hansel screamed his head off, but it was no use. Then the witch went to Gretel and jabbed her awake and shouted, ‘Get up, you lazy slut, get water and cook a good meal for your brother. He’s locked up outside in the shed and I want him fattened up. When he’s nice and plump, I’m going to eat him.’ Gretel started to cry hot, stinging tears, but it was hopeless, and she had to do what the wicked witch told her.
Day after day, the best meals were cooked for Hansel, while poor Gretel had to survive on crabshells. Every morning, the horrible witch groped and fumbled her way out to the shed and shrieked, ‘Hansel, stick out your finger for me to feel if you’re plump.’ But clever Hansel held out a little bone instead, and the old crone’s red witchy eyes couldn’t see it. She thought it was Hansel’s finger and was furious and surprised that he went on and on not getting plump. After four weeks of this, she lost her patience completely and refused to wait a day longer. ‘Now then, Gretel,’ she shouted. ‘Jump to it and cook him one last meal. Tomorrow, whether he’s plump or skinny, fat or thin, I’m going to cut Hansel’s throat with my sharpest knife and cook him.’ Gretel sobbed and wailed as the witch forced her to carry the water for cooking, and her face was basted with tears. ‘Who can help us now?’ she cried. ‘If only the wild beasts had eaten us in the forest, then at least we’d have died together.’ ‘You can cut that bawling out,’ said the witch. ‘It won’t do you any good.’
Next morning, Gretel had to go out and hang up a big cooking pot of water and light the fire. ‘First we’ll bake some bread,’ said the witch. ‘I’ve already heated the oven and kneaded the dough.’ She pushed and pinched poor Gretel over to where the oven was, with greedy flames leaping out of it already. ‘Crawl inside and tell me if it’s hot enough for the bread to go in.’ And the witch’s gruesome, gluttonous plan was to shut the oven door once Gretel was inside, so she could roast her and eat her too. But Gretel guessed this, and said, ‘I don’t know how to do it. How can I get inside there?’ ‘You foolish goose,’ snapped the witch. ‘The opening’s big enough for you. I could get into it myself. Look.’ And the witch hobbled up and poked her ugly head inside the oven. Then Gretel gave her such a push, such a big shove, that she fell right into the middle of the oven. Gretel slammed the iron door shut with shaking hands and bolted it. The witch began to shriek and howl in the most frightful way; but Gretel ran outside and the heartless witch burned agonizingly to death.
Gretel ran straight to Hansel’s shed and opened it, shouting, ‘Hansel, we’re saved! We’re saved! The old witch is dead.’ And Hansel jumped out, free as a bird released from a cage, and they both danced and cheered and hugged and kissed. There was nothing to be afraid of any more, so they went into the witch’s house and opened all her cupboards, which were stuffed to bursting with pearls and precious stones. ‘These are much better than pebbles,’ said Hansel. He crammed his pockets with as much as he could, and Gretel said, ‘I’ll take some home too,’ and filled her apron full to the brim. ‘Right,’ said Hansel. ‘Now let’s go and get out of this witchy forest for good.’
When the children had walked for a while, they came to the edge of a big, wide river. ‘I can’t see a bridge anywhere,’ said Hansel. ‘We won’t be able to get across.’ ‘And there’s no boat either,’ said Gretel. ‘But look! There’s a white duck swimming along. I’m sure it’ll help us across if I ask it nicely.’ So she called out:
‘Excuse me, little white duck,
Gretel and Hansel seem to be stuck.
A bridge or a boat is what we lack,
Will you carry us over on your back?’
Sure enough, the duck came swimming and quacking towards them, and Hansel jumped quickly onto its back and told Gretel to sit behind him. But sensible Gretel said, ‘No. That’ll be too heavy for the duck. I think it should take us across one at a time.’ And that is exactly what the kind little duck did. So Hansel and Gretel walked happily on, and the wood became more and more familiar, until at last they saw their father’s house in the distance. They began to run, run, run, charged into the kitchen and flung their arms around their father’s neck. The sad, lonely man had not had one happy moment since he had abandoned the children in the forest, and his wife had died and was buried. But Gretel shook out the contents of her apron, making the precious stones twinkle and shine upon the floor, and young Hansel threw down handful after handful of white pearls from his pockets. Now it was certain that all their troubles were over, and the grateful woodcutter and Hansel and Gretel lived on together at the edge of the forest and were happy ever after.
So that was that. Look! There goes a rat! Who’ll catch it and skin it and make a new hat?
The Golden Goose
Once there was a man who had three sons. Everyone thought that the youngest son was a simpleton. They called him Dummling, and picked on him, sneered at him, and teased him at every opportunity. One day, the eldest of the three decided to go into the forest and chop wood there. Before he set off, his mother gave him a beautiful, sweet home-made cake and an excellent bottle of wine, in case he needed to eat or drink. When the eldest son entered the forest, he saw a little grey-haired old man who called out good day to him and said, ‘Please give me a piece of that cake in your pocket, and let me have a gulp of your good wine. I am so hungry and thirsty.’ But the clever son replied coolly, ‘Certainly not. If I give you my cake and wine, I’ll have none left for myself and that wouldn’t be very smart, would it? Get lost!’ And he turned his back on the little man and strode smartly on. But when he began to chop at his first tree, it was only a few moments before he made a stupid stroke with the axe, and cut himself painfully in the arm. So he had to stagger home and have it bandaged. And it was the little grey man who had made this happen.
Soon after that, the second son decided to go to the forest; and he, too, received from his mother a delicious cake and a bottle of the best wine. The little old grey man met him as well, and asked him for a slice of cake and a swig of wine. But the sensible son refused. ‘That’s out of th
e question. Anything I give to you means less for me and where’s the sense in that? On your way.’ And he left the old man standing there and walked on purposefully. But his punishment came quickly; and as he was hacking away at the tree, he cut himself in the leg so deeply that he had to be carried home.
Faery Tales Page 10