Welcome to day five of The Horror of Fairytales Week here at White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings. Today’s post is about Hansel and Gretel and the horrors of childhood, but in particular, the focus will be on the cannibalism and murder found in the tale! The tale of the brother and sister lost in the woods is much darker than most modern versions of the story would have you think.
In early versions of Hansel and Gretel, the children were abandoned in the woods by their parents. It is not that the children wandered off and got lost, as we may have assumed or been told by more modern versions. The parents of the two young children are very poor, and they make a terrible choice to abandon their children in order to not have two more mouths to feed. In fact, this happens more than once, as the children end up finding their way home the first time!
The final time, the children end up finding the candy-coated home of a witch in the woods. Of course, the children are not able to find their way home and are desperate for food and shelter at this point. That is why they so easily fall for the witch’s trickery. Hansel is locked up and force-fed in order to fatten him up so that the witch can cook him and eat him once he is good and plump! The fact that these two young children are at risk of becoming a witch’s dinner is the most horrific element of the whole tale. After all, there is not much that is scarier than the prospect of being killed and eaten, especially by another human being! However, there are horrors littered throughout the plot of the story. The fact that the children’s parents attempt to abandon them to starve in the woods more than once and the lengths the children must go to in order to survive are notable horrors. These two innocent children have to become murderers in their own story just to survive. I will note that the ingenuity and quick thinking of Gretel are admirable traits that save the lives of her brother and herself.
That being said, Gretel has to trick the witch into climbing into her own oven when she pretends that she cannot figure out how to turn it on. The witch gets very irate but climbs into the oven, which allows Gretel to lock the oven door and burn the witch alive! That is how the children ended up surviving the story. We can easily see why this story has been adapted into literal horror films more than once. The tale is so gut-wrenching when we actually think of all the terrible things that happen during the plot That is why I just had to include this fairytale in The Horror of Fairytales Week!
I hope you have enjoyed this short look at the horror of children experiencing all levels of abuse in Hansel and Gretel. What is the most scary part of this story for you? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is an illustration of Gretel pushing the witch into the oven. I found the picture at https://www.childstories.org/en/hansel-and-gretel-1674.html.
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Further Reading
- Hansel and Gretel by The Grimm Brothers