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About the story...

Hansel and Gretel is a German folktale that is best known to have been adapted by the Brothers Grimm (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm). In the tale, Hansel and Gretel are the two children of a poor wood cutter. The wood cutter's wife (referred to either as the mother or the stepmother) convinces her husband to abandon the two children in the forest so that they will not have to feed the two children. Hansel and Gretel overhear this plan and gather white pebbles so that they can leave a trail in the woods to go home. When they arrive home, their (step)mother convinces her husband lead the children in the forest again. This time they use leave a trail of bread crumbs but the creatures that live in the woods eat the crumbs and cause the children to become lost.

While lost in the woods, Hansel and Gretel come upon a house made out of candies. Unable to resist, mostly due to hunger, the children begin to eat the house. The woman who owns the house finds them and invitest hem in, making food for them. While she seems like a pleasant woman at first, she is in truth a witch who built the house to draw children to her so that she can eat them. She puts Hansel into a cage and makes Gretel into her servant. Hansel is fed until he is fat enough to eat, but he uses a bone to trick the witch (who has very poor eyesight) to think that he wasn't fattening up at all. The witch later asks Gretel to climb into the oven to see if it's hot enough, but Gretel quickly comes to the conclusion that the witch intends to cook her so she asks the witch to show her how it is done. In doing so, the witch climbs into the oven and Gretel closes it behind her.

After freeing her brother and taking the treasures from the witch's candy house, Hansel and Gretel eventually find their way home to their father, where they find out that their (step)mother has died and, as in many fairy tales, they lived happily ever after.