HANSEL AND GRETEL | HERITAGE OF WORDS | GRADE 12 | SUMMARY

HANSEL AND GRETEL

Summary

By Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Once upon there was a woodcutter, who lived by a great forest. He was very poor and could not feed his wife and two children. Once they had no food to eat and his wife forced him to leave the children in the forest. The children knew this and the brother went out and filled his pockets with shining pebbles in the moonlight. Early next morning, they all went into the forest. On the way boy kept dropping the stones one by one. When they reached the forest, the parents made a great fire and asked the children to wait until they arrived there. But they did not arrive. When the moon shone, the brother led the sister following the shining pebbles and came home. The father was happy, but the mother was angry.

Soon after they had no bread again. The mother forced their father again to give up the children in the forest. But the boy could not go out of collect the pebbles because the door was bolted. In the morning each child was given a small piece of bread. On the way the boy dropped the crumbs of the bread one by one. Again the fire was made and the parent went away asking them to wait. The sister gave the brother half of her bread. They waited until evening. When the moon shone, they did not find the breadcrumbs because the birds had eaten them up. They walked on and on. The third day they found a house made of bread. Its window was made of sugar. As they were eating, an old woman came out and took them in. She gave them good food and nice beds. But next day she put the boy in the stable. She wanted to kill him after he was fat. The girl had to work hard. After four  weeks she was going to kill him and boil and she planned to roasted the sister. When the witch asked for her to go into the oven to see if it was hot, the sister said the she did not to know how to go in. When the witch was showing her the way, she pushed her in and shut the oven door. The witch burned to death. She opened the stable door and both of them brought home a lot of jewels. The father became rich, but the mother was dead