Hansel and Gretel ~

 

Once upon a time a brother and sister named Hansel and Gretel lived in a hut in the woods with their father.  Their father was a poor woodcutter.  His wife, their mother, had died when the two children were very young. Their father thought he would not be lonely anymore when he finally re-married.  But the new

stepmother made life very hard for Hansel and Gretel.  The children were not allowed to eat until after the stepmother had taken everything she wanted off the plates.  Most of the time, there was only a crust of bread left.  And all day long were hard chores for them to do.

Hansel and Gretel tried to tell their father about this but he would not hear of it.  It seemed the only one he would listen to was his wife.  And all the stepmother talked about was how much trouble it was to have children in the hut, and how much she wished they would go away forever. 

Thank you to Artist, DartGarry

 

Each day there was less and less food for the boy and girl to eat.  Yet the stepmother gave them more and more hard work to do.  One day Gretel begged her father, “Please, Father!  All day long we work hard and we’re hungry!”  But the stepmother slapped her face. “You ungrateful brats!" she yelled.  "You will eat us out of house and home!” 

That night the two children were not allowed to sleep in the hut. Outside in the cold, they shivered and tried to keep each other warm.  Winter was coming, and the clothes they wore were so thin it felt almost as if they had no clothes on at all.

 

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They shivered and tried to keep each other warm.

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The next morning when the sun rose, Gretel turned to her little brother. “Hansel,” she said, “we cannot stay here.  We must escape now, today, into the woods!  Surely we will find more to eat when we are on our own than what we get here at home.”

“Do you think?” said Hansel. "But what if we get lost?”

 

“We won’t!” said Gretel.  “I will take bread.  We will drop breadcrumbs behind us.  If we have to, we can follow the crumbs back home.”

And so the two of them went off into the woods and left their hard life behind. 

They went deeper and deeper into the woods.  Gretel was careful to drop one crumb and then after a bit, another.

Thanks to Artist, AlyssaTallent

 

But alas!  They looked and looked for any sign of something to eat - an apple tree, pear tree, some nuts on the ground, or even dried-up berries.  There was nothing to eat!  They got hungrier and hungrier. At last, poor Hansel and Gretel knew they must return to their hut or they would surely starve. They would just need to find the breadcrumbs and that would lead them home.   Yet when they looked for breadcrumbs, there were none to be found - all the breadcrumbs were gone! 

A bird whooshed up into the air and in its beak was a large crumb.  Hansel and Gretel were struck with grief – the birds must have taken all their breadcrumbs!  A wolf howled in the distance.  The sun was setting.  Hansel and Gretel were lost and hungry.  Now they were scared, too.

 

Thanks to Artist, Dariaazolina

 

“Gretel,” whispered Hansel in fear, “what will we do?”  She did not know what to say. All she could do was to hug her little brother. Each minute it was getting darker and darker. Again, a wolf howled in the distance. 

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All of a sudden, Gretel saw a small light shining far away.  Could it be someone's hut this deep in the woods?  “We must find out!” cried Gretel.  “Maybe whoever lives there is kind and will take us in.”

The two children sped as fast as they could to the light.