Hansel said, “And there’s no food anywhere.”
But Hansel was wrong. For just then, the two children saw a marvelous sight. There was a house, right in the center of the swamp. Its walls were the color of chocolate cake, and its roof glittered under the rising sun like icing. Slowly, the two hungry travelers approached it.
“I’m hungry,” Hansel said.
“Me too,” Gretel agreed.
“It looks like cake,” Hansel said.
“It smells like cake,” Gretel agreed.
“Let’s eat it!” Hansel cried.
“Mmmggrgmmm!” Gretel tried to agree, but her mouth was already full of fudgy, moist chocolate cake.
Just then, the door to the house flew open, and a woman in a baker’s apron appeared on the front step. “Who’s eating my house?” she bellowed. Hansel hid a handful of cake behind his back. Gretel had chocolate all over her face.
“No one,” Hansel said. Gretel nodded, swallowing.
But the baker woman’s face softened when she saw the two children. “You must be lost, to be in the middle of the swamp all by yourselves! Are you hungry?”
Gretel nodded and tried to sneak another handful of cake from the wall of the house.
“Well, don’t eat my house!” the baker woman laughed. “Come in and I’ll fix you a proper breakfast!”
So the children came in, and she made them goose eggs and wild boar bacon and good thick brown German bread with butter. They were so full after breakfast, and so exhausted from having walked all night, that the kindly baker woman put them in her bed and let them sleep all day.
When they awoke, a wonderful meal of sausages and potatoes and cold milk was laid out before them.
“But I’m not hungry,” Hansel said.
“Oh, you must eat up and regain your strength!” the baker woman told him.
So the children ate. The food was delicious.
The baker woman asked the children what their names were.
“This is Gretel,” Hansel said as he shoveled a disgustingly large amount of potatoes into his mouth. “And I’m her brother, Hansel.”
Then the baker woman wanted to know how they had come to her house. They were careful not to let her know that they were royalty, lest she return them to the castle and their murderous parents. But they did tell her that their parents had cut off their heads (which the baker woman didn’t believe). And that they were looking for a kind family where no one would ever do that to them again.
“And where we can eat cake whenever we want?” Gretel added hopefully.
The baker woman smiled and brought forth an enormous chocolate cake.
“Hooray!” Hansel cried. Gretel shoveled a fistful into her mouth.
The two children stayed with the baker woman for many weeks. Every day, they ate three enormous meals, plus a snack between lunch and dinner, and one before bedtime. They could eat whatever they wanted, and they did. Gretel shoveled chocolate cake into her mouth continuously, smearing it onto her pink cheeks like war paint. Hansel wasn’t much better.
One night, as the children lay in bed with horrible stomachaches, Hansel said to his sister, “Do you think this is Heaven? The baker woman does all the work, we can eat as much as we like, and we never have to do anything.”
“It must be Heaven,” Gretel said.
Then Hansel said, “Gretel, do you miss our parents?”
Gretel tried to think if she did or not. But she couldn’t tell. She was too busy eating the wall.
It wasn’t Heaven, of course. For, as you well know, the baker woman was planning to eat them.
But she wasn’t a witch. The Brothers Grimm call her a witch, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact she was just a regular woman who had discovered, sometime around the birth of her second child, that while she liked chicken and she liked beef and she liked pork, what she really, really liked was child.
I bet you can figure out how this happened.
When I was little, my mother used to say, “Oh, you’re so cute! Look at those little arms! Look at those little legs! Look at that little tookie!” (That was my mother’s word for my bottom.) And then she’d say, “I’m going to eat you up!” And she said it like she meant it.
Has your parent ever said something like that to you? Most parents say that kind of thing all the time, you know. It’s totally normal. Just be careful not to let them actually taste you.
Well, the baker woman’s children tasted so good to her that she decided to spend the rest of her time trying to find others to devour. She liked them nice and plump, so she always made sure to fatten them up before she ate them. Which is why she was treating Hansel and Gretel as she was.
Why else would she allow them to wallow around all day, giving them nothing to do, nothing to work for, nothing to learn? Why else trap them in a house of chocolate cake and let them eat to their hearts’ content, never warning them that they would become fat and lazy, like pigs in a sty?
Parents are supposed to help their children to grow wise and healthy and strong. The baker woman was doing the opposite, plying the children with so much food and giving them so little to do that they could not help but become weak and heavy and dull instead.
Dull enough that Gretel didn’t question when the baker woman asked her to clean out the large, mysterious cage in the back of the house, and then slammed the door shut on her. Heavy enough that Hansel didn’t feel like going outside to see where his sister had gone. Weak enough that, when the baker woman told Hansel that they would be fattening Gretel up for just one more week, and that then they would eat her, Hansel could do nothing about it.
And then the day came to eat Gretel. “I think we’ll roast her,” the baker woman said. “A little rosemary, some salt, and we’ll put her in the oven for three or four hours. Then her meat will positively fall off the bone.”
She brought the fat Hansel down to her basement, where there stood an enormous oven. “I need you to check if this is hot enough, sweetie,” the baker woman said. “I’m going to start heating it, and you get inside. When I can smell your skin roasting, I’ll know it’s ready for your sister.” She shoved Hansel inside and closed the oven door.
The oven became hotter and hotter, and Hansel began to sweat. Then a delicious smell wafted to his nostrils.
Oh no! he thought. I’m cooking! He sniffed at the air. And I smell delicious!
But he wasn’t cooking. It just was the remainder of a leg of goose that he’d hidden in his trouser pocket from last night’s dinner and had forgotten to eat before he fell asleep. It was so hot in the oven that the skin was crinkling. The baker woman smelled it, too. She came down and opened the oven door. “Are you cooking yet?” she asked. But Hansel shook his head and took another bite of the goose leg. The baker woman frowned and closed the oven door.
I probably should have said yes, he thought. Oh well.
He finished off the goose leg and continued to sweat. Soon, another delicious smell rose to his nostrils.
Oh no! he thought. Now I’m cooking for certain! He sniffed at the air. And I smell delicious!
But he wasn’t cooking. It was three strips of bacon that he’d tucked into his socks at breakfast. It was so hot in the oven that the fat was sizzling and popping. The baker woman smelled it, too. She came down and opened the oven door. “Are you cooking yet?” she asked. But Hansel shook his head and ate the second strip of bacon. The baker woman frowned and closed the door.