{"id":592,"date":"2021-06-15T19:12:49","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T19:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.science.smith.edu\/climatelit\/?page_id=592"},"modified":"2025-02-28T03:03:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T03:03:22","slug":"hansel-and-gretel","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.science.smith.edu\/climatelit\/hansel-and-gretel\/","title":{"rendered":"<em> Hansel and Gretel <\/em> (1812) by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hansel and Gretel<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, also known as the Brothers Grimm, tells the story of siblings, Hansel and Gretel, in Medieval Germany who are abandoned by their parents.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hansel and Gretel\u2019s parents take them to the forest, where they plan to leave them. However, Hansel knows of their plan and drops a trail of stones behind him so that the siblings can find their way back home.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The parents abandon their children in the forest for a second time, and this time Hansel makes a trail of breadcrumbs. However, birds eat the breadcrumbs, and Hansel and Gretel become lost.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The children come across a giant gingerbread house in the woods and they begin to eat it as they are both starving. A witch who lives in the gingerbread house enslaves Gretel and forces her to feed Hansel so that he may grow big for the witch to eat.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The children trick the witch and shove her into her own oven before she can eat Hansel. They return home, and their mother dies shortly after.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hansel and Gretel <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">was included in the first volume of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kinder-und Hausmarchen, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">or Grimms\u2019 Fairy Tales, published in 1812, but the story originated in the Baltic region around 1315 CE. The Brothers Grimm likely heard it from Wilhelm\u2019s wife, Henriette Dorothea Wild.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Grimms originally wrote their stories to preserve German culture and folklore, not necessarily so that they would be read by children. As a result, this story and many of their others include dark themes such as murder, cannibalism and abandonment.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_593\" style=\"width: 832px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-593\" class=\"size-full wp-image-593\" src=\"https:\/\/www.science.smith.edu\/climatelit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/97\/2021\/06\/Hansel-and-Gretel.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"822\" height=\"1178\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.science.smith.edu\/climatelit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/97\/2021\/06\/Hansel-and-Gretel.png 822w, https:\/\/www.science.smith.edu\/climatelit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/97\/2021\/06\/Hansel-and-Gretel-209x300.png 209w, https:\/\/www.science.smith.edu\/climatelit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/97\/2021\/06\/Hansel-and-Gretel-715x1024.png 715w, https:\/\/www.science.smith.edu\/climatelit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/97\/2021\/06\/Hansel-and-Gretel-768x1101.png 768w, https:\/\/www.science.smith.edu\/climatelit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/97\/2021\/06\/Hansel-and-Gretel-624x894.png 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 822px) 100vw, 822px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-593\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of Hansel and Gretel meeting the witch outside of her gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel (from Williams, 2020).<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>How is this related to climate?<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The story of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hansel and Gretel<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> was inspired by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.smith.edu\/climatelit\/the-great-famine\/\">Great Famine of 1315-1317<\/a> in Europe. The famine was caused by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.smith.edu\/climatelit\/the-effects-of-the-little-ice-age\/\">Little Ice Age<\/a>, a period of widespread cooling and a drop in average global temperatures, that brought cold weather and torrential rains to Europe. The rains were particularly harmful to food supply, as they rotted crops and promoted diseases that infected livestock.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The famine created dire conditions in Europe. The elderly often went hungry to spare food for younger people. Parents abandoned their children because they could not feed them and some people even resorted to cannibalism.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shortly after Hansel and Gretel kill the witch, their mother dies, suggesting that these characters are linked, or are the same character. The mother and witch represent a person suffering from starvation and their desperate actions.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>References and additional resources<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Arnold, S. H. \u201cThe Origins of Stories &#8211; Hansel and Gretel.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Medium. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">2020. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/the-everyday-writer\/the-origins-of-stories-hansel-and-gretel-6833d47d5546\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">https:\/\/medium.com\/the-everyday-writer\/the-origins-of-stories-hansel-and-gretel-6833d47d5546<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">McBride, C. \u201cThe Dark History Behind Hansel and Gretel.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Syfy Wire. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">2020. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.syfy.com\/syfywire\/the-dark-history-behind-hansel-and-gretel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">https:\/\/www.syfy.com\/syfywire\/the-dark-history-behind-hansel-and-gretel<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\">Williams, J. \u201cDiscover the Truly Grim History Behind the Fairy Tale of Hansel and Gretel.\u201d <i style=\"font-size: 1rem\">All That\u2019s Interesting.<\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> 2020. <\/span><a style=\"font-size: 1rem\" href=\"https:\/\/allthatsinteresting.com\/hansel-and-gretel-true-story#:~:text=The%20true%20story%20of%20Hansel%20and%20Gretel%20goes,crop%20failures%20and%20massive%20starvation%20across%20the%20globe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/allthatsinteresting.com\/hansel-and-gretel-true-story<\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>How to cite this page<\/h3>\n<p><em>Hansel and Gretel (1812) by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm<\/em>. (2024, February 20). Climate in Global Cultures and Histories: Promoting Climate Literacy Across Disciplines. Retrieved Month Date, Year, from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.smith.edu\/climatelit\/hansel-and-gretel\/\">https:\/\/www.science.smith.edu\/climatelit\/hansel-and-gretel\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hansel and Gretel, by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, also known as the Brothers Grimm, tells the story of siblings, Hansel and Gretel, in Medieval Germany who are abandoned by their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":308,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-592","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Hansel and Gretel  (1812) by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm - 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