This story tells the tale of two small children. Their father was a woodcutter and had a wife whom he had married after the death of the children’s mother to take care of them. But the wicked stepmother didn’t love the children as she should, so she often incited the father against them, to leave them in a place far from home, so she would remain alone as mistress of the place, and no one other than her would win the father’s love.
During that period, the country was suffering from extreme poverty, and hunger spread everywhere. The father couldn’t provide his two children and his wife with a lot of food. What he brought home ran out very quickly. Of course, this was a perfect opportunity for the wicked wife to get rid of the children so she wouldn’t have to take care of them. She didn’t want to care for them and thought that by doing so she was a servant for them.
The wicked wife decided to get rid of the children. She suggested to the poor father that he take his two children, leave them alone in the forest, and return. Anyone passing through the forest would take care of them. He couldn’t feed them, and it was good to leave them to someone who could feed them. This was what they wanted, and she would endure with him the lack of food and hunger.
The poor father was convinced by his wife’s point of view, not knowing that she wanted to abandon her responsibility and get rid of the children. He did what she had advised. The two children had heard their stepmother’s plan, so on the day before the execution of their stepmother’s scheme, they gathered many pebbles. When their father came and took them to the forest, the two children scattered the pebbles behind them on the ground, so they could find their way by them after the father left.
Indeed, after the father left his two children alone in the forest and returned home, it was only a few hours before the children returned home again. The father kept trying hard to provide food, but he couldn’t. Hunger was cutting through their insides, and of course the food was only enough for two people, not four. His wife suggested again that he get rid of the children in the forest, hoping they would find someone who would be kind to them and feed them or sponsor them. The father executed the plan for the second time.
The two children heard what was said, but they couldn’t gather many pebbles. So they scattered some grains of wheat and rice on the ground. Unfortunately, birds and some animals ate them. The children lost their way to the home until they reached a new place with a house made of candy. They began eating from it, extremely happy. But a gray-haired old woman came out of the house and invited them to enter to eat more candy.
The two children entered, then discovered later that it was a trap, and that the old woman lured children with candy, then invited them to enter to eat them. The old woman imprisoned Hansel to fatten him up to eat him, and used his sister Gretel to serve her.
The time came to eat Hansel. The old woman asked Gretel to check if the oven was hot enough to roast the child, but the girl deceived her and pushed her into the oven, then closed it on her with her brother’s help. Then the two children escaped from the house by a miracle, after taking some food with them. They fled together and discovered the way back to their father’s home. They returned to him, and he swore never to leave them again forever.