Hansel and Gretel - retold

Hansel and Gretel

Once upon a time their lived a woodcutter and his wife in the forest. The woodcutter was a strong man with a big heart. His wife was self-centred and thought only of herself. They had two children. A boy named Hansel who was nine and a girl named Gretel who was eight. Hansel was brave and Gretel was smart. They always looked after each other and couldn�t be separated. The woodcutter loved his family and was very sad because a great famine had taken the land. When he told his wife that they would be out of food soon, the wife had an idea.

�We must get rid of the children,� she said. �We must take them so deep into the forest that they won�t be able to find their way back home.� She believed that by getting rid of the children they would have enough food for themselves. �We can�t do that!� cried the woodcutter. �We can and we must!� shouted the wife. �It�s better that some of us survive than all of us die.� The woodcutter tried to tell his wife that they couldn�t do such a thing, but she wouldn�t let him speak another word about it. She told him that the matter was settled and there wasn�t anything he could do about it. They would give them one loaf of bread and then they would have to take care of themselves.

The children could hear their parents talking from their bedroom and were scared. Gretel cried and said, �What will we do out there in the forest with no home and only a loaf of bread? I�m scared, Hansel� Hansel quickly replied, �Don�t worry Gretel. I have a plan. We�ll back in no time at all and dad will have us back.�

So, the next morning the wife took the children deep into the dark, dark forest and made a fire for them. She gave them a loaf of bread to share for dinner and told them not to eat it until dinner because they wouldn�t get anymore. She told the children to stay where they were while she and their father were out chopping wood. She said that they would come back and get the children once enough wood was chopped.

The sun went down, the moon came up and there was no sign of their parents. �She did it!� screamed Gretel. �She left us out here alone!� Hansel replied, �Don�t worry Gretel, I dropped trail of breadcrumbs for us to follow back home. Can you see the breadcrumbs?� Gretel saw the breadcrumbs. They followed the breadcrumb trail, but there was a bit of wind earlier that day and some of the breadcrumbs had been blown into a different direction. They followed the breadcrumb trail to a house made of gingerbread and candy instead of going home.

Gretel stood before the house; she couldn�t believe her eyes. Hansel immediately ran to the house and pulled off one of the gum drop candies lining the door and started eating it. Suddenly the door opened and an elderly woman holding a cane stepped out of the house.

�My, my,� she said in a soft creaky voice. �There are two little children outside my house,� she chuckled with a creepy look in her eye. �Please come in my little dearies. You must be hungry.� Both Hansel and Gretel knew that something was weird, but they could smell the food coming from the house and they were starving. So, they both walked in.

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Inside the house, Hansel and Gretel immediately saw a table filled with food, so they both ran to it and started eating all the cakes, cookies, pudding, and candy right away. As they were eating, they got a better look at the woman in the light and realized that she was an ugly old witch! But it was too late, they had already eaten the food from the table. Before they could run out of the house, they both fell asleep.

Morning came and Hansel woke up in a cage above a very large wood stove while Gretel woke up chained to the table. The witch told Gretel to make a fire. Gretel was scared, but she knew she had better listen to the witch. So, she thought for a moment about it and started making the fire. She knew that the witch was going to cook Hansel if she didn�t act quickly. When the witch asked if the fire was hot enough yet, Gretel asked the witch why she thought she would tell her the truth. If the fire was hot enough, she would cook her brother. The witch looked at Gretel angrily and said, �You will not get away with this. Your time will come, you just wait little dearie.� The witch opened the door to the oven and looked in just as Gretel pushed her into the oven and shut the door. Hansel and Gretel could hear the screams of the witch coming from the oven as she was cooked into a crispy roast.

Scared and happy Gretel let Hansel out of the cage and they both ran from the house. Suddenly, they could hear their father�s voice calling to them in the forest. They ran to their father and their father told them that their mother had died of food poisoning.�

They all went back home together. They never talked about the witch or their mother again and lived happily ever after.

�WORDS �MOTHER �FATHER �SISTER �BROTHER �CHILD �WIFE �HUSBAND �SURVIVE �FAMINE �WOODCUTTER� GRETAL HANSEL �

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