Tales of the German Imagination from the Brothers Grimm to Ingeborg Bachmann (Penguin Classics) Read Online Free Page A

it out of the woods and were very hungry, as they’d eaten nothing but a few berries they found on the ground. And because they were so tired, their little legs couldn’t carry them any further, so they laid themselves down under a tree and fell asleep.
    It was already the third morning since they’d left their father’s house. They began walking again, but they went ever deeper into the woods, and if help did not reach them soon they were done for.
    At noon they spotted a lovely little snow-white bird perched on a branch that sang so sweetly they stopped and listened. And when it had finished singing, it flapped its wings and fluttered before them, and they followed it until they came to a little cottage on the roof of which it landed. When the children approached they saw that the cottage was built out of bread and covered with cake; but the windows were made of clear sugar crystal.
    ‘Let’s dig in,’ said Hansel, ‘and make a blessed meal of it. I’ll eat a piece of the roof, and you, Gretel, can sup on the window, which ought to taste sweet.’ Hansel reached out and broke a little bit of the roof off to see how it tasted, and Gretel walked up to the window pane and nibbled at it.
    Whereupon a soft voice called out from within:
  Nibble, nibble, like a mouse,
      Who is nibbling at my house?
    To which the children replied:
    The wind blows wild,
        The heavenly child,
    and kept right on eating, without batting an eyelid.
    Hansel, to whom the roof tasted delicious, tore off a great big hunk of it, and Gretel prised off a whole round window pane, sat herself down and promptly ate it up.
    Then all of a sudden the door flew open and an old crone came hobbling out on a crutch. Hansel and Gretel were so petrified they dropped what they had in their hands. But the old woman just shook her head and said: ‘Oh my dear little children, who brought you here? Come in, come in, and make yourselves at home, no harm will come to you here.’ Then she took both of them by the hand and led them into her little house. She fetched out all kinds of good things to eat, milk and pancakes with sugar, apples and nuts. And afterwards, she made up two little beds with fresh white linen, and Hansel and Gretel laid themselves down and thought they were in heaven.
    But the old woman only pretended to be nice; she was an evil witch who lay in wait for children, and had only built the house of bread to lure them into a trap. Whenever she laid her hands on a fresh young thing, she cooked it up and made a feast of it. Witches have red eyes and can’t see very far, but they have a keen sense of smell, like animals, and know when people are approaching. When Hansel and Gretel came up close to herhouse, she sniggered and sneered to herself: ‘I’ve got them in the bag, they won’t get away.’
    Early the next morning, before the children batted an eyelid, and still lay lost in their sweet slumber, she got up to peer at their round, rosy cheeks and muttered to herself: ‘They’ll make a tasty morsel.’ Whereupon she grabbed Hansel with her bony-fingered hand, dragged him out to a little pen and locked him behind a wire gate; cry as he might, it did him no good. Then she went over to Gretel, shook her awake and yelled: ‘Get up, you lazy bones, fetch me water from the well and cook your brother something good to eat, he’s out there in the pen and I mean to fatten him up. And when he’s good and plump I’ll eat him.’ Gretel started crying bitterly but it did her no good, she had to do what the evil witch wanted. So the finest food was cooked up for poor Hansel, yet Gretel got nothing but crayfish shells.
    Every morning the old crone slipped off to the pen and cried: ‘Hansel, stick your finger out so I can feel if you’re fat enough.’ But Hansel poked a little bone out of the pen, and the old crone, whose eyes were weak and couldn’t see it, took it for Hansel’s finger, surprised that he failed to fatten up. Once