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". The Brothers Grimm indeed introduced the word "stepmother", but retained "mother" in some passages. In the original edition of the tale, the woodcutter's wife is the children's biological mother, but she was also called "stepmother" from the 4th edition (1840). Märchenbrunnen, Berlin.įrom 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, but also became more Christian in tone, shifting the blame for abandonment from a mother to a stepmother associated with the witch. Sculpture of Hansel on the duck by Ignatius Taschner. A house made of confectionery is also found in a 14th-century manuscript about the Land of Cockayne. 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". Shortly after this period, close written variants like Martin Montanus' Gartengesellschaft (1590) began to appear. 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." Īccording to folklorist Jack Zipes, the tale emerged in the Late Middle Ages Germany (1250–1500). 3.2 The Children and the Ogre (ATU 327)Īlthough 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.The tale has been adapted to various media, most notably the opera Hänsel und Gretel (1893) by Engelbert Humperdinck. It also includes an episode of type 1121 ('Burning the Witch in Her Own Oven').
"Hansel and Gretel" is a tale of Aarne–Thompson–Uther type 327A. The two children then escape with their lives and return home with the witch's treasure. The cannibalistic witch intends to fatten the children before eventually eating them, but Gretel outwits the witch and kills her. Hansel and Gretel are a brother and sister abandoned in a forest, where they fall into the hands of a witch who lives in a house made of gingerbread, cake, and pastries. ˈ ɡ r ɛ t əl/ also known as Hansel and Grettel, or Little Step Brother and Little Step Sister German: Hänsel und Gret( h) el ) is a fairy tale collected by the German Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 in Grimm's Fairy Tales (KHM 15). " Hansel and Gretel" ( / ˈ h æ n s əl, ˈ h ɛ n- . Kinder- und Hausmärchen, by the Brothers Grimm The witch welcomes Hansel and Gretel into her hut.