School of Humans.
This episode discusses sensitive topics. Please listen with care. I'm your host, Miranda Hawkins. Welcome to the Deep Dark Woods. Today's story is three two seven, or Hansel and Gretel.
Next to a great forest, there lived a poor woodcutter who had come upon such hard times that he could scarcely provide daily bread for his wife and his two children, Hansel and Gretel. Finally, he could no longer even manage this, and he did not know where to turn for help. One evening, as he was lying in bed worrying about his problems, his wife said to him, listen, man, early tomorrow, take the two children, give them each a little piece of bread, then lead them into the middle of the
thickest part of the woods. Make a fire for them, and leave them there, for we can no longer feed them. No woman, said the man. I cannot bring myself to abandon my own children to wild animals that would quickly tear them to pieces. If you don't do it, said the woman, all of us will starve together. And she gave him no peace until he said yes. The two children were still awake from hunger and heard everything that the mother had said.
To the father.
Gretel thought that she was doomed and began to cry pitifully, but Hansel said, be quiet, Gretel, and don't worry.
I know what to do with that.
He got up, pulled on his jacket, opened the lower door, and crept outside. The moon was shining brightly, and the white pebbles were glistening like silver coins. Hansel bent over and filled his jacket pockets with them as many as would fit. Then he went back into the house and said, don't worry, Gretel.
Sleep well.
Then he went back to bed and fell asleep. The next morning, the mother came and woke them both before sunrise. Get up, you children were going into the woods. Here's a little piece of bread. Take care and save it until midday.
Gretel put the.
Bread under her apron because Hansel's pockets were full of stones, and they set forth into the woods. After they had walked a little way, Hansel began stopping again and again and looking back toward the house. The father said, Hansel, why are you stopping and looking back?
Pay attention now.
And keep up with us, oh father. I am looking at my white cat that is sitting on the roof, and wants to say goodbye to me. The mother said, you fool, That isn't your cat. That's the morning sun shining on the chimney. However, Hansel had not been looking at his cat, but instead he had been dropping the shiny pebbles from his pockets onto the path. When they are in the middle of the woods, the father said, you children, gather some wood, and I will make a
fire so we won't freeze. Hansel and Gretel gathered up some twigs a pile as high as a small mountain. They set it a fire, and when the flames were burning well, the mother said, lie down by the fire and sleep. We will go into the woods to cut down trees. Wait here until we come back and get you. Hansel and Gretel sat by the fire until midday and then ate their bread. They sat on until evening, but the mother and father did not return, and no one
came to get them. When it became dark, Gretel began to cry, and Hansel said, wait a little till the moon comes up. After the moon had come up, he took Gretel by the hand. The pebbles were lying there like newly minted coins, glistening. They showed them the way. They walked throughout the entire night, and as morning was breaking, they arrived at the father's house. The father was overjoyed when he saw his children once more, for he had not wanted to leave them alone. The mother pretended that
she too was happy, but secretly she was angry. Not long afterward, there was once again no bread in the house, and one evening, Hansel and Gretel heard the mother say to the father, the children found their way back once, and I let it be. But again we only have half a loaf of bread in the house. Tomorrow, you must take them deeper into the woods so they cannot find their way home. Otherwise there will be no help for us.
The man was.
Very disheartened, and he thought it would be better to share the last bit with the children, but because he had done it once, he could not say no. Hansel and Gretel heard the parent's conversation. Hansel got up and wanted to gather pebbles once again, but when he came to the door, he found that the mother had locked it. Still, he comforted Gretel and said, just go to sleep, Gretel,
Dear God will help us. Early the next morning, they received their little pieces of bread even less than last time. On the way, Hansel crumbled his piece of bread in his pocket, then often stood still and threw crumbs on to the ground. Why are you always stopping and looking around, said his father. Keep walking straight ahead. Oh, I can see my pigeon sitting on the roof. It wants to say good bye to me, you fool, said his mother. That isn't your pigeon. That's the morning sun shining on
the chimney. But Hansel crumbled all of his bread and dropped the crumbs on to the path. The mother took them deeper into the woods than they had ever been in their whole lifetime. There they were told to sleep by a large fire and that the parents would come get them in the evening. At midday, Gretel shared her bread with Hansel because he had scattered all of his along the path. Midday passed and evening passed, but no
one came to get the poor children. Hansel comforted Gretel and said, wait, when the moon comes up, I will be able to see the crumbs of bread that I scattered, and they will show us the way back home. The moon came up, but when Hansel looked for the crumbs.
They were gone.
The many thousands of birds in the woods had found them and pecked them up. Hansel thought that he would still be able to find the way home, and he and Gretel set forth, but they soon became totally lost in the great wilderness. They walked through the night and the entire next day, and then exhausted, they fell asleep. They walked another day, but they could not find their way out of the woods. They were terribly hungry, for they had eaten only a few small berries that were
growing on the ground. On the third day, they walked until midday, when they came to a little house built entirely from bread, with a roof made of cake, and the windows were made of clear sugar. Let's sit down and eat our fill, said Hansel. I'll eat from the roof, and Gretel, you eat from the window. That will be nice and sweet for you. Hansel had already eaten a piece from the roof, and Gretel had eaten a few round window panes, and she had just broken out another
one when she heard a gentle voice calling from inside. Nibble, nibble, little mouse, who is nibbling at my house. Hansel and Gretel were so frightened that they dropped what they were holding in their hands, and immediately they saw a little woman as old as the hills creeping out the door. She shook her head and said, oh, you, dear children, where did you come from? Come inside with me, and you will be just fine. She took them by the hand and led them into her house.
It's funny, I've never thought of Hansel and Gretel as a dark fairy tale, or maybe I've heard it so many times it's lost some of its pact. But how the story of Hansel and Gretel came to be is more horrific than the tail itself. From around nine fifty to twelve fifty AD, during Europe's medieval period, there was a peculiar phenomenon. The temperature began to rise. There's a lot of reasons for this to happen, but the result was that this unseasonably warm time led to surplus and crops,
and Europe's population exploded. But then in the early thirteen hundreds, temperatures dropped for Europe. This meant torrential rains and cold weather. Crops failed, and livestock died. All of a sudden, that population boom that seemed so great was in a dire situation. People were sick, people were starving. When it came to basic items like grain, wheat, barley, oats, bread, and salt,
it was either too expensive or just gone. In desperation, people resorted to murdering and stealing just to fill their bellies. Adults starved themselves so the young could eat, or they would abandon their children. And if that wasn't enough, people also ate dogs and horses. People would even eat each other. It was eat or be eaten. Along with a mass famine, regions were destabilized, which led to class warfare and political strife.
Europe was in chaos. Finally, in thirteen seventeen, the crop stabilized, but it wasn't until five years later the food.
Supply was replenished.
During this time, Northern Europe alone, which includes Germany, saw five to twelve percent of their population die of starvation and starvation related illnesses. This is where people believe the tale of two starving children abandoned by their mother and father began. Centuries later, the brothers Grim heard the story
of Hansel and Gretel. Some people think the story might have come from the German region of Hesse, which is where Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were from, but most people think the brothers heard the story from a twelve year old girl named Henrietta Dorothea Wilde. She was called Dorchen for short. Dorten's father forbade her and his six other daughters from hanging out with the brothers because they were too poor. But fast forward to eighteen twenty five, Dortun
became Missus Grimm when she and Wilhelm were married. The brothers Grim published Handel and Gretel in their first collection in eighteen twelve, picking up from where we left off of the start of this episode. After the children met the old woman in the woods, she led them to her house. The witch then knocked handle on the page while she made Gretel to the housework to eat both children, but started with Hansel. She forced Hansel to eat every
day to fatten him up. She'd then make him stick out his finger to check if he was getting fatter, but Hansel would stick out a bone instead. After a month, the witch got fed up and decided she was going to eat Hansel. When the witch called Gretel over and asked her if the oven was hot enough. Gretel tricked the witch, saying she didn't know how to tell, so the witch leaned over to show Gretel, and then Gretel shoved the witch in the oven and locked it up,
leaving the witch to burn. After Gretel freed her brother, the two made it home. Their father was overjoyed to see them. Their mother, however, was dead. Of course, the Grims Hansel and Gretel wasn't the only version of this story. We know that stories travel and adapt across places and time, resulting in numerous variations with common themes and ideas.
Besides, Germany was not.
The only place where children were abandoned in the woods. One was written by Italian author John Battista Bazille, who was born in fifteen sixty six and died in sixteen thirty two. His version, Nanillo and Nanilla was published after his death, although.
The published day is unknown.
But in this one, it's a stepmother, not the mother, who forces the father to abandon the children. The two kids are separated by the howling of a prince's hounds. The young boy is taken in by the prince. The sister by pirates. When the pirates are attacked and shipwrecked, a large magical fish swallows her whole, and she grows up in a mansion inside the fish's belly. Years later, the sister catches sight of her brother on shore, and they are reunited when the fish delivers her to him.
The prince in puts out a to find their father, who eventually shows up at the castle, glad to see his children are safe and alive. As for the cruel stepmother, she is put in a cask and rolled down a mountain. Remember Charles Perraut, He's a French author who wrote the magical version of Cinderella that Disney pulled from. He also wrote a story like Hansel and Gretel. His came more than a century before the Grims, in sixteen ninety seven, titled The Little Thumb. In Pierrot's story, a father and
mother have seven children. The mother never has less than two at a time. There's nothing magical about it. She just happens to love kids. Her youngest is named Little Thumb because he's born as small as a person's thumb. The father is a one who says the children.
Must be abandoned.
It's a mother who is absolutely against the idea, but eventually the father wears her down. The next day, the brothers are led into the woods the first time. The boys find their way back using pebbles little Thumb had tossed to the ground to leave a trail.
When they return.
Initially, everyone is happy because the parents had run into some money so there was food for all. But when the money runs out and their bellies are hungry, the parents take their kids to the woods a second time. Again, the mother is against it, but the father pushes.
Her into making this decision.
The second time, the seven brothers get lost in the woods and end up at an ogre's house. The ogre's wife wants to protect the boys from her husband, who wants to kill and eat them. The ogre and Ogris have seven daughters who have already bitten and drink the blood of human kids. To save himself and his brothers, Thumb tricks the Ogre into slitting the throats of his daughters. Thumb and his brothers then make run for it.
When the Ogre realizes what.
He's done, he puts on his magical seven League boots to hunt the boys down. Seven League boots allow the wearer to travel seven leagues per step, which of course enables a person to cover great distances in a short time. The boys see the ogre coming and hide behind a rock. The ogre, who's very tired from wearing the boots, lays down for a nap, which happens to be by the same rock where the boys are hiding.
Thumb tells his brothers to head home, and they do.
Meanwhile, them puts on the boots and heads back to the ogre's wife.
He tells her that her.
Husband has been captured by a gang of thieves and he needs all the gold and silver to save him. She of course gives him the gold and silver. Her husband might eat children, but he is a good husband. Now, there are two endings to this story. Perrot wrote both within the same story, although it's uncle clear why. The first is that Thumb heads home with all the Ogre's money and is received with great joy. But in Perou's alternate version, the little Thumb doesn't get any money from
the ogre's wife. Instead, he takes the seven league boots and heads to court, where he speaks with the king and helps with the war. After serving for a while and getting rich. It's only then them returns home and is received with great joy. While Basili's story involves child abandonment, it lacks cannibalism.
It's also more in line with.
A traditional fairy tale and that it has a clear and decisive, happy ending. Pero's is different in that the roles of the mother and father are reversed, and while it still involves child abandonment, cannibalism still plays a factor. However, there is something to be said about the ogress wanting to protect the seven brothers, So what about Hansel and Gretel.
Well.
As time win on, Hansel and Gretel's roots became too dark even for the Brother's Graham. My first memories of Hansel and Gretel always include the stepmother. It was a stepmother who came up with the idea to abandon the kids. It was a stepmother who convinced a father to go along with the plan. It was a stepmother who felt no remorse about leaving two children alone in the woods. But as you heard at the beginning of this episode,
the original Brother's Graham story didn't have a stepmother. It was a children's biological mother who did all of those things. Even for Jacob and Wilhelm. This soon became too dark for them.
How could a mother abandon.
Her own children? It was too dark a mark on motherhood. So by the time their fourth collection was published, the mother had become the stepmother. Also, after the mother became a stepmother, she went from being portrayed as practical to mean, even abusive. She called both a husband and children names like fool and lazy bones, and was more apt to criticize and scold. The father evolved into a more sympathetic character.
This is shown through changes made in his dialogue. There's one line that is added in the later version where the father says, but I do feel sorry for the poor children. By the time the final edition was published in eighteen fifty seven, the Brother's Grim had made even more changes. Not only had the family dynamics changed, but
it had become more of a fairy tale. For example, at the end of the final story, the children come to a large body of water they can't cross, so they call out and a duckling carries him across, one at a time before finally making a home.
To their father.
And as the years passed, Hansel and Gretel drifted even further from its dark, twisted roots. In eighteen ninety three, composer Engelbert Humperdink wrote an opera that is still performed widely today. In his story, Hansel and Gretel's father is a broommaker. The children are home when Hansel complains he's hungry, so Gretel shows him milk the neighbors have given them. The kids are happy and danced and end up knocking
the milk over. Their mother, who is their biological mother, is furious with the children, so she sends them to pick strawberries. Notice this isn't based on malice or coldness. This is just one of those hey, you spilled the milk, now clean it up kind of things. But when the dad returns home and the wife tells him where the kids are, he tells her about the witch that lives in the woods. Both parents are worried and immediately set out searching for their kids. This all happens in Act one.
From there things become even more fantastical. An act two, Hansel admits he's lost the way, and then a magical bang called the Sandman comes and puts kids to sleep. Then an act three, Hansel and Gretel are woken by the dew fairy and see the gingerbread house where the witch lives.
But they don't see the witch.
Things are per usual here, with the witch getting shoved and burned in the oven and Hansel and Gretel escaping, except with a lot more spell casting. Also, after the witch is shoved into the oven, it explodes, and then all the children that had been captured and turned into gingerbread before Hansel and Gretel are turned back into children. It's not clear if the other kids may get home to their parents, but overall it's portrayed as a happy ending for everyone. It's a far cry from the original
grim tale of food insecurity, starvation, and child abandonment. And while Graham had a witch and at some point a duck, it did not have a magic wand or spells or a sandman. Ray harry Hausen dropped to stop motion animation in nineteen fifty one. The story once again has changed completely. In this story, Handel and Gretel head into the woods to forts for food to help their dad, who is stressed trying to keep in a food on the table. What's important to note here is they choose to go
into the woods entirely of their own free will. After their mini ordeals, they are of course rewarded with gold, silver, and precious jewels. Each version of Handel and Gretel has its own moral, but this one was specifically about familial bonds. During the nineteen fifties, nuclear families were important, meaning a mother, father, and children. Divorce was majorly looked down upon, so value
was placed on keeping the family together. This is shown through Harry Hausen's stop motion and that it was about the children wanting to help their father rather than the father or parents betraying the children.
The entire ordeal.
Strengthened the family's relationship, and then in nineteen eighty three, the story was stripped down even further with Shelley Devall's Fairytale Theater, which was created for television. The big takeaway from the Fairytale Theater is that it's a cautionary tale for kids to not take candy from strangers. In the early two thousands, there were a couple more remakes. Hansel and Gretel Get Baked was a weird, trippy movie released in twenty thirteen that involved a witch, grawing Weed, and
two kids who liked to get high. There's a witch who, in order to stay young, kills and eats teenagers, and instead of a gingerbread house, she uses a special brand of weed to lure them to her place. In the movie, Gretel's boyfriend introduces her to a strain of weed called black Forest. Gretel makes him go get more, and he gets taken and eaten by the witch, whose name is Agnes. Gretel convinces Hansel to come with her to search for her boyfriend, where they inevitably battle the witch.
The two escape, but so does Agnes.
Also in twenty thirteen, Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters was released. The movie picks up fifteen years after Hansel and Gretel burn the witch in the oven. The two have become hell bent on revenge by hunting down and killing witches.
What they don't know is not every.
Witch's bad, and as a movie unfolds, you learn Hansel and Gretel's mother was the original white Witch. Now the head of the coven of the Bad Witches needs Gretel's heart to complete a ceremony. What I found interesting here was how they transformed the character of the witch. I would argue the presence of the good, good, and bad witch in the Witch Hunters shows a shift in how we view women now and the brothers Grim tales witches were always evil, They ate children, tortured people, and overall
weren't to be trusted. But more so, the fear around witches was that they were women, women who showed independence or owned their agency, or defy typical gender roles. It was those women who lived during the Grim's time who are considered the real threat. Folkloris and retired professor Jack Zipes also believes there's been a recent shift in how witches are viewed. Zips has written, translated, and critiqued many fairy tales and continues to do public engagements.
So what has happened in Western societies is that the witch has no longer become dangerous because the women's movement, the way women have fought for their own independence, has made tremendous gains in most Western societies. Not in the Middle East, not in India or China or other places, but in Western societies. Women like to be called witches.
They have taken over the witch, and they formed groups called the witches, and they're proud and they have deflated the critique of women who are called witches and shown that we in society has gotten everything wrong, and so tales about witches today are much softer or unusual or whatever, But they do not show women more or less as killers, as eaters, as cannibals, and things like that.
The same can be said at the twenty twenty movie Gretel and Hansel. The first most notable change is that Gretel's name is first in the title. The second is that at the end, while the witch is killed, Gretel starts to become a witch herself. The movie sets itself apart at the beginning by creating different stakes. Their father is already dead and the mother threatens that if they come back, they will be killed themselves, so there is no home to go back to. The mother also casts
out Gretel because of her affinity for magical powers. I think this could be an argument on women taking their
power back or not shying away from it. Other articles I've read point to this film showing a shift from patriarchy to patriarchy and also a lesson of gender roles, since Gretel, by circumstances, is found taking care of her brother at such a young age, at least at the beginning of the film, but at the end, after the witch is killed and the two are free, they each go their own way, Hansel to the foresters, who are basically people who help to take care of the forest,
and Gretel to learn more about herself and her powers.
But let's back.
Up a bit, because while remakes and revisions of the original tale are being fit for the big screen, there's one author who took Hansel and Gretel back to its tragic roots, just in a slightly different way. Known best for his graphic novels The Sandman and his novels like Stardust and American Gods, Neil Gaiman does not shy away
from horror or hardships. In fact, all of his stories center on uncomfortable truths, and in twenty fourteen, he and illustrator Lorenzo Matati teamed up to create their own version of Hansel and Gretel. In Gayman's retelling, the family is poor, but they still have enough to eat. They catch game in the woods, dig up vegetables from the gardens. When they have enough money, their pop brings home chunks of meat. There was freshly baked bread and cook cabbage and eggs on their table.
The family wasn't necessarily happy.
Gamon describes their mother as sharp tongued and their father as sullen. The father doesn't always want to be around the kids, but those were the good days because that was before the war. Gamon was intentional on how he described the war. He never said when, who, or where. He never had Hansel and Gretel's family chose side. In this way, the story can be applied to any war
in their family, to everyone who is affected. As the war drags on, there is no food to be found, and that is when the mother mentions to the father that they must take the kids to the woods. The ending is also different. Not only do the children return to a happy father and a dead mother, but in the years that followed there were no more empty plates, and when Hansel and Gretel got married, there was so much food at their weddings that the fat from the
meat written down their chins. I feel Gaymon's version of Hansel and Gretel is the most important retelling. Other versions softened the original story, basically taking out its teeth and watering it down. Gaiman's version restored some of the initial integrity of Hansel and Gretel being about famine and child abandonment, But as retired professor Jack Zeipes points out, war is not the only reason for child abandonment.
And it's popular today because we abandoned children. We abuse children. You know, you can talk about all the people who are coming to our country from South America who send their children ahead of themselves because they can't get there, but the children might be They pray, probably you know that the children will have a better life that they get to America, but they abandon them on the border. There are tons of children who have been abandoned by
their parents because they don't know what to do. And so why do we continue to read, listen, and play with this particular tale. It's because of the fact that we haven't resolved this. We have not developed the conditions that we should develop that will enable poor people to lead fulfilled lives. And this tale deals with that question.
It deals with why we abandon children leave them. But the whole question of abandonment of children hasn't gone away today, and that's why Hansel and Gretel is so significant.
There are different reasons why children go hungry, or why they're just abandoned.
It can be argued children.
Are left behind out of love or selfishness, but it's never really that simple. While Hansel and Grettel is a fairy tale, it's not meant to be easily digested. In an article Claire McBride wrote for sci Fi, she said, quote the idea that when famine comes, the people who are meant to care for you will fail you. Handol and Bruttel contend not only with their mother, but with their father's and ability to protect them from the consequences
of famine and the fairy tale. After the children successfully kill the witch, the mother dies, suggesting a connection between the two characters.
The one trying to survive.
By abandoning the children and the one trying to survive by eating them might be one and the same, just at different points in their desperation.
End quote Hanslin.
Grettel was intended to encompass the hardships of hunger and what people will do to survive, but Decades chose to soften the blow in the end.
As Zipe says, most important thing is to bear in mind when these tales were collected, why they'd be so significant in Europe at that time and why they have stuck with us because we live in a society we abandon children, we exploit children. Children are really not socialized, and so this tale will never go away.
Next time, beware those who say they want to help.
It always comes with a price.
The Deep Dark Woods is a production of School Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It was created, written, and hosted by me Miranda Hawkins. This episode was produced by mikel June was senior producer Gabby Watts. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley, and Maya Howard. Stories were voiced by Julia Christgau. Theme song was composed by Jesse Niswanger,
who also sound designed and mixed this episode. If you enjoyed this show, please leave a review and you can follow along with the show on Instagram at School of Humans