The story
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1785–1863 · 1786–1859)
From Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales), first published in 1812. Retold here in our own words.
At the edge of a great forest lived a poor woodcutter with his wife and his two children, Hansel and Gretel. Times were hard, and one night, when there was no bread left in the house, the wife said: "We cannot feed them any more. Tomorrow we will take the children deep into the forest and leave them. It is the only way." The woodcutter wept, but at last he agreed.
Hansel, lying awake, heard everything. He slipped outside, filled his pockets with white pebbles shining in the moonlight, and went back to bed. In the morning the parents took the children into the forest, and Hansel dropped a pebble every few steps. At noon they were told to rest, and the parents slipped away. When the moon rose, the pebbles glowed like silver coins, and Hansel and Gretel followed them home.
Soon hunger came again, and again the stepmother, for the wife had died and the woodcutter had married again, planned to abandon them. This time she locked the door so Hansel could gather no pebbles. He crumbled his bread in his pocket instead, and dropped crumbs along the path. But the birds of the forest ate every crumb, and when the children woke alone, there was no trail home.
They walked for three days, living on berries, until they came to a clearing where stood the strangest house: its walls were bread, its roof was cake, and its windows were clear sugar. "We will feast," cried Hansel, and they began to nibble the house. Then a sweet voice called from inside: "Nibble, nibble, little mouse, who is nibbling at my house?" And out came an old, old woman, leaning on a crutch.
She seemed kind. She gave them milk and pancakes with sugar, apples and nuts, and put them to bed in soft white beds. But she was a wicked witch, and she fattened children to eat them. In the morning she seized Hansel, locked him in a stable, and ordered Gretel to cook rich food for him. "When he is fat," she cackled, "I shall eat him." Every day she told Hansel to hold out his finger so she could feel how fat he grew, but clever Hansel held out a little bone instead, and the witch, whose eyes were dim, wondered why he stayed so thin.
After four weeks she lost patience. "Heat the oven," she told Gretel. "We shall bake bread today." But Gretel understood: the witch meant to push her into the oven. When the witch bent to look inside, Gretel gave her a mighty shove, slammed the iron door, and the witch burned to a crisp.
Gretel freed Hansel, and they found the witch's treasure: chests of pearls and jewels. They filled their pockets and set out. At a wide river, a duck carried them across, one at a time. Through the forest they went, and at last they saw their father's house. He had never had a happy hour since they left, and he wept for joy. The stepmother had died, and with the witch's treasure they lived free of hunger for the rest of their days.
Moral and themes
Cleverness and courage beat brute power. Hansel's pebbles, his bone trick, and Gretel's quick shove at the oven show that children survive by thinking, not by force. The tale also warns against appearances: the candy house looks like kindness and hides hunger of another kind. And it ends with a hard truth the Grimms did not soften: the parents' failure is real, but home, in the end, is where the father weeps with joy.
Reading note
Notice how the story is built in two halves that mirror each other. In the first, the children are abandoned because there is no food; in the second, they find too much food, and it is a trap. Hansel leads the first half with his pebbles, Gretel leads the second with her courage at the oven: the tale hands the hero's role from brother to sister halfway through. It is also one of the Grimms' most honest stories about poverty: the abandonment comes from hunger, not from monsters, which is why it frightens children and adults differently.