World classic, retold in simple Mandarin
Hansel and Gretel
糖果屋
The Brothers Grimm's Hansel and Gretel in 15 chapters, set in a German forest long ago. In a famine, a woodcutter's wife, the children's stepmother, makes him leave Hansel and Gretel deep in the forest. Hansel's white pebbles lead them home. The second time, birds eat his crumbs, and the lost children follow a snow-white bird to a house of bread and sugar.
Meet the voices
- Narrator · 旁白 — Tells the Brothers Grimm's old German tale of Hansel and Gretel calmly, warmly and plainly.
- Hansel · 汉赛尔 — Gretel's older brother, quick, brave and full of plans, who wants above all to get his sister home safe.
- Gretel · 格莱特 — Hansel's little sister, small, soft and quick to cry, who carries their bread in her white apron.
- the stepmother · 后妈 — The woodcutter's wife and the children's stepmother, hard and sharp-tongued, who wants to leave them in the forest when the bread runs out.
- the father · 爸爸 — Hansel and Gretel's father, a poor, gentle woodcutter who loves his children but gives in to his wife.
- the witch · 巫婆 — A very, very old woman on one crutch, whose little house deep in the forest is made of bread, cake and sugar.
15 chapters in 3 parts
Part 1: Into the Forest 走进森林
Chapter 1: The White Pebbles
白石头
With no bread left in the house, Hansel and Gretel hear a cold plan in the dark, and Hansel slips out under the moon.
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Chapter 2: The White Cat
小白猫
Before sunrise the family walks into the forest, Hansel keeps stopping to look back, and the children are told to rest by the fire.
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Chapter 3: Half a Loaf
半个面包
Alone in the cold, dark forest, Hansel and Gretel wait for the moon to rise, and Hansel's white pebbles are their only hope.
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Chapter 4: The Little Pigeon
小鸽子
The door stays locked, the white pebbles lie out of reach, and in the morning the family walks deeper into the forest than ever before.
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Chapter 5: The House of Sweets
甜甜的房子
Lost and starving, Hansel and Gretel follow a snow-white bird through the forest to a little house they can hardly believe.
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Part 2: The Old Woman's House 老奶奶的房子
Chapter 6: Two Little White Beds
两张小白床
The very old woman in the doorway has caught two lost children eating her house. She doesn't scold them. She smiles. What does she want with them?
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Chapter 7: The Witch's Cage
巫婆的笼子
Early in the morning, before the children wake, the old woman stands over their beds. By breakfast, nothing in this house is what it seemed.
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Chapter 8: Stick Out Your Finger
伸出手指
Every morning the witch comes to the cage to feel whether Hansel is fat yet. Hansel has an idea. But how long can a trick like his last?
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Chapter 9: Help Us
帮帮我们
Four weeks go by, and every morning the little bone fools the witch's dim eyes. Hansel is still thin, and the witch is still hungry.
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Chapter 10: The Big Oven
大烤炉
Morning comes. The pot is full of water, and Gretel must light the fire that will cook her brother. But the witch's big oven is already hot.
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Part 3: The Way Home 回家的路
Chapter 11: The Oven Door
烤炉的门
The witch wants Gretel inside the flaming oven. Gretel has cried for weeks; now, with her brother in the cage, she has one chance to think fast.
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Chapter 12: Like a Bird
像小鸟一样
Locked in the cage, Hansel is sure today is the day the witch eats him. He has no idea what his little sister has just done at the oven.
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Chapter 13: The Witch's Chests
巫婆的箱子
Hansel lifts the lid of the witch's first big chest. Then, with the house behind them, the children must find the way home on their own.
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Chapter 14: The White Duck
白鸭子
Gretel calls to the white duck at the great water, but can one little duck carry two children and all their pearls?
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Chapter 15: Home
回家
Hansel and Gretel run the last stretch home, loaded with pearls. Will their father still want the children he left in the forest?
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Key words in Hansel and Gretel
Behind the story
Hansel and Gretel (糖果屋) is tale 15 in the Brothers Grimm's Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales), where its title is Hänsel und Grethel. This book follows their final edition of 1857: every scene comes from that text, in the Grimms' order, shortened and told in simple Chinese.
Hansel eats from the roof of the little house and Gretel from a window, until a soft voice calls from inside. They answer with the wind and go on eating. The book keeps Grimm's rhyme: 谁在吃我的小房子？ “Who is eating my little house?” 是风，是天上的风。 “The wind, the wind from heaven.”
This book keeps to the Grimms' world, which names no place or year: a poor woodcutter's small house at the edge of a great forest in old Germany, and deep in that forest a little house made of bread, with a roof of cake and windows of clear sugar. Its pictures show the forest and the woodcutter's hut as Ludwig Richter and Arthur Rackham drew them.
Did you know?
- 糖果 (tángguǒ) means “candy” and 屋 (wū) means “house”, so 糖果屋, “the Candy House”, is the name Chinese readers know this tale by. In Grimm the house is bread, cake and clear sugar.
- 后妈 (hòumā) means “stepmother”: 后 (hòu) is “after” and 妈 (mā) is “mom”. In the Grimms' final edition the woodcutter's wife is the children's stepmother, die Stiefmutter.
- 月亮 (yuèliang), “moon”, is one of this book's key words: under the moon, Hansel's 白石头 (bái shítou), “white pebbles”, shine like silver coins.