“Anything!” the queen cried. “Anything we can do, we must do! We owe it to him!”
“Even if it meant killing our two children?” the king asked.
The queen gasped. She fell to the floor and wept bitterly. At last she said, “I would never do it. I could never do it. But I know we should. We owe him our lives.”
“I couldn’t agree more!” the king exclaimed. “And that’s why ...” As he said this, he opened the wardrobe doors, and out came their two beloved children, all covered in blood, followed by a living, breathing Johannes. The queen screamed and fainted. The king threw a basin of water in her face, and she woke up and screamed again. Then the king explained it all to her, and she wept and laughed and threw her arms first around her children and after around Johannes, and then she held them all at once and wept and laughed some more.
Sort of.
You see, the way the Brothers Grimm tell it, that is the end. But it isn’t really. Not at all.
For as the king recounted what had happened to his wife, Hansel and Gretel heard. And understood.
Late that night, they lay in their beds, unable to sleep.
“Hansel,” Gretel said.
“Yes, Gretel?”
“Did you hear what Father said?”
“Yes.”
“He cut off our heads to save that ugly old man.”
Hansel was silent.
“And Mommy was glad that he did. Do you think they hate us?”
Hansel was silent still.
“I think we should run away,” Gretel said. “In case they want to do it again.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” Hansel answered. “Just what I was thinking....”
Hansel and Gretel
Once upon a time, two children left their home and walked out into the wide, wild world.
The land was dark as Hansel and Gretel made their way across the level turf beyond the palace moat. They had never left the palace by themselves before, and they knew little of the great world beyond its walls. But they had been frightened by what their father had done. And they believed firmly in their little hearts that parents should not kill their children, and they were resolved to punish theirs by going out and finding a family that was as nice as a family should be.
How to find such a family, though? They had no option but to walk, and walk, and walk, until they came across one.
So they did walk, on and on and on, until the firm ground became softer under their feet. Soon they found themselves in the midst of a muck-thick swamp, where will-o’-the-wisps danced and bullfrogs croaked. They became frightened. But on they went.
When the sun came up the next morning, and the swamp still showed no sign of coming to an end, Gretel began to worry. “I think we’ll be lost forever!” she said.
Hansel said, “And there’s no food anywhere.”
But Hansel was wrong. For just then, the two children saw a marvelous sight. There was a house, right in the center of the swamp. Its walls were the color of chocolate cake, and its roof glittered under the rising sun like icing. Slowly, the two hungry travelers approached it.
“I’m hungry,” Hansel said.
“Me too,” Gretel agreed.
“It looks like cake,” Hansel said.
“It smells like cake,” Gretel agreed.
“Let’s eat it!” Hansel cried.
Just then, the door to the house flew open, and a woman in a baker’s apron appeared on the front step. “Who’s eating my house?” she bellowed. Hansel hid a handful of cake behind his back. Gretel had chocolate all over her face.
“No one,” Hansel said. Gretel nodded, swallowing.
But the baker woman’s face softened when she saw the two children. “You must be lost, to be in the middle of the swamp all by yourselves! Are you hungry?”
Gretel nodded and tried to sneak another handful of cake from the wall of the house.
“Well, don’t eat my house!” the baker woman laughed. “Come in and I’ll fix you a proper breakfast!”
So the children came in, and she made them goose eggs and wild boar bacon and good thick brown German bread with butter. They were so full after breakfast, and so exhausted from having walked all night, that the kindly baker woman put them in her bed and let them sleep all day.
When they awoke, a wonderful meal of sausages and potatoes and cold milk was laid out before them.
“But I’m not hungry,” Hansel said.
“Oh, you must eat up and regain your strength!” the baker woman told him.
So the children ate. The food was delicious.
The baker woman asked the children what their names were.
“This is Gretel,” Hansel said as he shoveled a disgustingly large amount of potatoes into his mouth. “And I’m her brother, Hansel.”
Then the baker woman wanted to know how they had come to her house. They were careful not to let her know that they were royalty, lest she return them to the castle and their murderous parents. But they did tell her that their parents had cut off their heads (which the baker woman didn’t believe). And that they were looking for a kind family where no one would ever do that to them again.
“And where we can eat cake whenever we want?” Gretel added hopefully.
The baker woman smiled and brought forth an enormous chocolate cake.
“Hooray!” Hansel cried. Gretel shoveled a fistful into her mouth.
The two children stayed with the baker woman for many weeks. Every day, they ate three enormous meals, plus a snack between lunch and dinner, and one before bedtime. They could eat whatever they wanted, and they did. Gretel shoveled chocolate cake into her mouth continuously, smearing it onto her pink cheeks like war paint. Hansel wasn’t much better.
One night, as the children lay in bed with horrible stomachaches, Hansel said to his sister, “Do you think this is Heaven? The baker woman does all the work, we can eat as much as we like, and we never have to do anything.”
“It must be Heaven,” Gretel said.
Then Hansel said, “Gretel, do you miss our parents?”
Gretel tried to think if she did or not. But she couldn’t tell. She was too busy eating the wall.
It wasn’t Heaven, of course. For, as you well know, the baker woman was planning to eat them.
But she wasn’t a witch. The Brothers Grimm call her a witch, but nothing could be further from the
