There lived a poor woodcutter with his wife and two children on the edge of a dense forest; The boy's name was Hansel, and the girl's name was Gretel. The woodcutter lived from hand to mouth; Then one day the cost of living in that land became so high that he had nothing to buy even bread for food.
And so, in the evening, lying in bed, he began to think, and various thoughts and concerns kept overwhelming him; he sighed and said to his wife:
- What will happen to us now? How can we feed poor children, since we ourselves have nothing to eat!
“You know what,” the wife answered, “let’s take the children into the forest, into the deepest thicket, early in the morning, as soon as it starts to get light; Let's make a fire for them, give them each a piece of bread, and we ourselves will go to work and leave them alone. They won't find their way home, so we'll get rid of them.
“No, wife,” says the woodcutter, “I won’t do that; After all, my heart is not a stone, I can’t leave my children alone in the forest, wild animals will attack them there and tear them apart.
- Oh, you simpleton! - says the wife. “Otherwise all four of us will perish from hunger, and there will only be one thing left to do—to knock together coffins.” “And she pestered him until he agreed with her.”
“But I still feel sorry for my poor children!” - said the woodcutter.
The children could not sleep from hunger and heard everything that the stepmother said to their father. Gretel burst into bitter tears and said to Hansel:
“Apparently, we’ll have to disappear now.”
“Hush, Gretel,” said Hansel, “don’t worry, I’ll think of something.”
And when his parents fell asleep, he got up, put on his jacket, opened the door to the hallway and quietly climbed out into the street. At that time, the moon was shining brightly, and the white stones lying in front of the hut glittered like piles of silver coins.
Hansel bent down and filled his pocket full of them. Then he returned home and said to Gretel:
- Comfort yourself, dear sister, sleep peacefully now. - And with these words he went back to bed.
It had just begun to get light, the sun had not yet risen, but the stepmother had already come up and began to wake up the children:
“Hey, you lazybones, it’s time to get up, come with us to the forest to get some firewood!”
She gave each of them a piece of bread and said:
- This will be for your lunch; Yes, make sure you don’t eat it ahead of time, you won’t get anything else.
Gretel hid the bread in her apron because Hansel had a pocket full of stones. And they got ready to go into the forest together. They walked a little, suddenly Hansel stopped, looked back, looked at the hut - so he kept looking back and stopping. And his father says to him:
- Hansel, why are you still looking around and falling behind? Don't yawn, go quickly.
“Oh, father,” Hansel answered him, “I keep looking at my white cat, she’s sitting on the roof, as if she wants to say goodbye to me.”
And the stepmother says:
- Eh, you fool, this is not your cat at all, this morning sun shines on the chimney.
And Hansel didn’t look at the cat at all, but took shiny pebbles out of his pocket and threw them onto the road.
So they entered the very thicket of the forest, and the father said:
- Well, children, now collect brushwood, and I’ll make a fire so that you don’t get cold.
Hansel and Gretel collected a whole bunch of brushwood. They lit a fire. When the flame burns well, the stepmother says:
“Well, kids, now lie down by the fire and have a good rest, and we’ll go into the forest to chop wood.” When we finish work, we'll come back and take you home.
Hansel and Gretel sat down by the fire, and when noon came, each of them ate a piece of bread. They kept hearing the sound of an ax and thought that their father was somewhere nearby. But it was not the knock of an ax, but of a block of wood that the woodcutter tied to a dry tree, and it, swinging in the wind, knocked on the trunk.
The children sat like that by the fire for a long time, their eyes began to close from fatigue, and they fell soundly asleep. And when we woke up, it was already the dead of night. Gretel cried and said:
- How can we get out of the forest now? Hansel began to console her:
-Wait a little, the moon will rise soon, and we will find the way.
When the moon rose, Hansel took his sister by the hand and walked from pebble to pebble - and they sparkled like new silver money and showed the children the way. They walked all night long and came to their father’s hut at dawn.
They knocked, the stepmother opened the door for them; she sees that it is Hansel and Gretel, and says:
- Why did you, bad children, sleep in the forest for so long? And we thought that you didn’t want to go back at all.
The father was delighted when he saw the children; his heart was heavy that he had left them alone.
And soon hunger and need came again, and the children heard their stepmother at night, lying in bed, saying to their father:
“We’ve already eaten everything again, there’s only half a crust of bread left, it’s clear that we’ll soon be finished.” We need to get rid of the children: let's take them further into the forest so that they don't have to find their way back - we have no other choice.
The woodcutter’s heart became heavy, and he thought: “It would be better for me to share the last piece with the children.” But his wife didn’t want to hear about it and began to scold and reproach him. And so - a bad beginning does not lead to a good end - he conceded once, and now he had to agree.
The children were still awake and heard the entire conversation. And as soon as the parents fell asleep, Hansel got up again and wanted to leave the house to collect pebbles, like the last time; but the stepmother locked the door, and Hansel could not get out of the hut. He began to console his sister and said:
“Don’t cry, Gretel, sleep well, God will help us somehow.”
Early in the morning the stepmother came and got the children out of bed. She gave them a piece of bread, it was even smaller than the first time. On the way to the forest, Hansel crumbled bread in his pocket, kept stopping and throwing bread crumbs on the road.
“Why are you, Hansel, you keep stopping and looking around,” said the father, “go on your way.”
“Yes, I’m looking at my little dove, he’s sitting there on the roof of the house, as if he’s saying goodbye to me,” answered Hansel.
“You fool,” said the stepmother, “this is not your dove at all, this is the morning sun shining on the top of the chimney.”
And Hansel threw everything and threw bread crumbs along the way. So the stepmother took the children even deeper into the forest, where they had never been before. They lit a big fire again, and the stepmother said:
-Children, sit down here, and if you get tired, sleep a little; and we will go into the forest to chop wood, and in the evening, when we finish work, we will return here and take you home.
When noon came, Gretel shared her piece of bread with Hansel - after all, he had crumbled all his bread along the way. Then they fell asleep. But now the evening passed, and no one came for the poor children. They woke up on a dark night, and Hansel began to console his sister:
“Wait, Gretel, soon the moon will rise, and the bread crumbs that I scattered along the road will become visible, they will show us the way home.”
Then the moon rose, and the children set off on their journey, but they did not find any bread crumbs - thousands of birds that fly in the forest and in the field all pecked them. Then Hansel says to Gretel:
“We’ll find our way somehow.”
But they didn't find her. They had to walk all night and all day, from morning until evening, but they could not get out of the forest. The children were very hungry, because they had eaten nothing except the berries they picked along the way. They were so tired that they could barely move their legs, and so they lay down under a tree and fell asleep.
It was already the third morning since they left their father’s hut. They moved on. They walked and walked, but the forest got deeper and darker, and if help hadn’t arrived soon, they would have been exhausted.
Then midday came, and the children noticed a beautiful snow-white bird on a branch. She sang so well that they stopped and listened to her singing. But suddenly the bird fell silent and, flapping its wings, flew in front of them, and they followed it and walked until they finally reached the hut, where the bird sat on the roof. They came closer and saw that the hut was made of bread, the roof on it was made of gingerbread, and the windows were all made of transparent candy.
“So we’ll get to work on it,” said Hansel, “and then we’ll have a nice treat!” I'll take a piece of the roof, and you, Gretel, take hold of the window - it must be very sweet.
Hansel climbed onto the hut and broke off a piece of the roof to try what it tasted like, and Gretel went to the window and began gnawing on it.
Suddenly a thin voice was heard from inside:
Everything crunches and crunches under the window,
Who is gnawing and gnawing at the house?
The children answered:
This is a wonderful guest
Wind from heaven!
And not paying attention, they continued to eat the house.
Hansel, who really liked the roof, tore a large piece from it and threw it down, and Gretel broke out a whole round piece of glass from the candy and, sitting down near the hut, began to feast on it.
Suddenly the door opens and an old woman comes out, leaning on a crutch. Hansel and Gretel were so frightened of her that they dropped the treat from their hands. The old woman shook her head and said:
- Eh, dear children, who brought you here? Well, you are welcome, come into the hut, no harm will happen to you here.
She took them both by the hands and led them into her hut. She brought them delicious food - milk with pancakes sprinkled with sugar, apples and nuts. Then she made two beautiful beds and covered them with white blankets. Hansel and Gretel lay down and thought that they must have gone to heaven.
But the old woman only pretended to be so kind, but she was actually an evil witch who was lying in wait for the children, and she built a hut out of bread as a bait. If anyone fell into her hands, she killed him, then boiled him and ate him, and this was a holiday for her. Witches always have red eyes, and they see poorly in the distance, but they have a sense of smell, like animals, and they sense the proximity of a person.
When Hansel and Gretel approached her hut, she laughed evilly and said with a grin:
- So they got caught! Well, now they can’t get away from me!
Early in the morning, when the children were still sleeping, she got up, looked at how they were sleeping peacefully and how plump and rosy their cheeks were, and muttered to herself: “I’ll prepare myself a delicious dish.”
She grabbed Hansel with her bony hand, carried him into the barn and locked him there behind the lattice door - let him scream to himself as much as he liked, nothing would help him. Then she went to Gretel, pushed her, woke her up and said:
- Get up, lazy one, and bring me some water, cook something tasty for your brother - he’s sitting there in the barn, let him fatten up well. And when he gets fat, I'll eat him.
Gretel burst into bitter tears, but what to do? — she had to carry out the orders of the evil witch.
And so delicious dishes were prepared, and Gretel got only scraps.
Every morning the old woman made her way to the small stable and said:
“Hansel, give me your fingers, I want to see if you’ve grown fat enough.”
But Hansel handed her the bone, and the old woman, who had weak eyes, could not see what it was, and thought that it was Hansel’s fingers, and wondered why he was not getting fatter.
Four weeks passed like this, but Hansel was still thin. At this point the old woman lost all patience and did not want to wait any longer.
“Hey, Gretel,” she shouted to the girl, “get moving quickly, bring some water: it doesn’t matter whether Hansel is fat or skinny, and tomorrow morning I will kill him and cook him.”
Oh, how the poor sister grieved when she had to carry water, how her tears flowed in streams down her cheeks!
- Lord, help us! - she exclaimed. “It would be better if we were torn to pieces by wild animals in the forest, then at least we would die together.”
“Well, there’s no need to whine,” the old woman shouted. “Nothing will help you now.”
Early in the morning, Gretel had to get up, go out into the yard, hang a pot of water and light a fire.
“First we’ll bake the bread,” said the old woman, “I’ve already lit the oven and kneaded the dough.” She pushed poor Gretel towards the stove itself, from where a large flame was blazing. “Well, climb into the oven,” said the witch, “and see if it’s well heated, isn’t it time to plant grains?”
Just as Gretel was about to climb into the oven, the old woman wanted to close it with the damper so that she could fry Gretel and then eat her. But Gretel guessed what the old woman was up to and said:
- Yes, I don’t know how to do this, how do I get through there?
“Here’s a stupid goose,” said the old woman, “look how big the mouth is, I could climb into it.” - And she climbed onto the pole and stuck her head into the oven.
Then Gretel pushed the witch, so much so that she ended up right in the oven itself. Then Gretel covered the stove with an iron damper and locked it. Wow, how terribly the witch howled! And Gretel ran away; and the damned witch burned in terrible torment.
Gretel rushed quickly to Hansel, opened the barn and shouted:
- Hansel, we are saved: the old witch is dead!
Hansel jumped out of the barn, like a bird from a cage when the door is opened for her. How happy they were, how they threw themselves on each other’s necks, how they jumped for joy, how tightly they kissed! And since now they had nothing to fear, they entered the witch’s hut, and there stood caskets with pearls and precious stones everywhere in the corners.
“These, perhaps, will be better than our stones,” said Hansel and filled his pockets full of them.
And Gretel says:
“I also want to bring something home.” “And she poured them all over her apron.”
“Well, now let’s quickly run away from here,” said Hansel, “after all, we still need to get out of the witch’s forest.”
“They walked like this for two hours and finally came across a large lake.”
“We can’t get across it,” says Hansel, “there’s neither a path nor a bridge anywhere.”
“And you can’t even see the boat,” Gretel answered, “and there’s a white duck swimming over there; if I ask her, she will help us cross to the other side.
And Gretel shouted: Ducky, my duck,
Swim a little closer to us
No path, no bridge,
Cross us, don't leave us!
A duck swam up, Hansel sat on it and called his sister to sit with him.
“No,” Gretel answered, “it will be too hard for the duck; let her transport you first, and then me.
This is what the good duck did, and when they happily crossed to the other side and walked on, the forest became more and more familiar to them, and they finally noticed their father’s house from afar. Here, in joy, they started to run, jumped into the room and threw themselves on their father’s neck.
From the time the father left the children in the forest, he did not have a moment of joy, and his wife died. Gretel opened her apron, and pearls and precious stones scattered around the room, Hansel took whole handfuls of them out of his pocket.
And the end came to their need and grief, and they all lived happily together.
This is where the fairy tale ends,
And there the mouse runs forward;
Whoever catches her will
Sew himself a fur hat,
Yes, a big one.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru