Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm

Do you remember the story of Hansel and Gretel? It's one of the more famous fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm. There have been a lot of tellings, retellings, reinterpretations, and stories inspired by it over the years.

Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales) is the collection we know most of the famous Grimm stories from, including Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, and Snow White. First published in 1812, it was revised multiple times by Wilhelm Grimm to appeal to a broader audience, especially children. By the final edition in 1857, the collection had over 200 tales, and it remains the source for the versions we know today.

The story of Hansel and Gretel even became a hot subject in 1960s academia when reports of a German teacher and amateur archaeologist claimed to have discovered the origin of the fairy tale—as the story went, he even found the witch's house. You won't believe how that tale unfolded.

First, let's start with a little reminder of the story of Hansel and Gretel so we can orient ourselves in the dark world of folklore.

TL;DR Edition of Hansel & Gretel: Snack Attack Gone Wrong—How Two Kids Roasted a Witch and Got Rich

Hansel and Gretel get ditched in the woods by their parents (thanks, fam!) and stumble upon a house made of candy (score!), but surprise—it's owned by a witch who wants to fatten them up and have them for dinner! Cannibalistically, not platonically. The kids flip the script, yeet her into her own oven (karmic payback), raid her loot, and strut home like, "Guess who's rich now, beeotch!?"

Okay, the original isn't that long of a story. I'd encourage you to read it in its entirety, as it's only about 3,500 words.

Check out these full versions of Hansel and Gretel:

• ​PG-ish Version at The Fable Cottage: Now With 90% Less Trauma and More Candy, Plus Great Illustrations!​
• ​Gruesome Version: Complete With Trauma, Abandonment Issues, and a Side of Cannibalism!​

About the Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm: Jacob and Wilhelm.

Let's pause here just for a second to appreciate that awesome moniker.

In English, "grim" means something dark, forbidding, or sinister, often used to describe a gloomy or unsettling atmosphere. In German, "Grimm" means "wrath" or "fury," evoking images of intense anger and fierceness. Interestingly, the Brothers Grimm's surname doesn't directly reflect this meaning, but it certainly fits their collection of dark, haunting fairy tales. In both German and Swiss German, "Grimm" could also be a nickname for someone stern or forbidding, reinforcing the idea of a serious, even grim, personality—perfectly suiting the tone of the tales they became famous for.

We should all be so lucky to become known as anything even remotely as dark as that, and theirs has endured for over a century and a half already.

Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm weren't the typical storytellers; they didn't sit down and dream up their own dark tales. Interestingly, none of the stories from the Brothers Grimm were inventions of their own. Instead, they traveled across towns and villages in the early 19th century, listening to folk stories that had survived for generations. Most of the stories they gathered were quite dark, covering everything from cannibalism and murder to dismemberment, torture, child abandonment, deals with the devil, cooking children, poisoning rivals, and lopping off limbs. Really shockingly brutal compared to the fairy tales we know today. For the average child, the stuff of nightmares. But for kids like me? Pure literary gold.

Before folk tales, Jacob and Wilhelm were interested in law and philosophy, focusing on the structure and history of language. At the time, the Napoleonic Wars ravaged much of Europe, which disrupted their academic plans, so they turned their attention to preserving something they felt was slowly slipping away due to political upheavals—German culture itself. They saw the oral tradition of folk stories as vital links to the past and cultural heritage. So, they set out to collect and document as many as they could before they quite literally disappeared. Each tale they gathered was a piece of the puzzle to understanding the spirit of the German people and a fragment of history. They traveled, sat around fires, and listened to villagers recount eerie tales passed down from their ancestors.

Despite being famous for their dark fairy tales, the Brothers Grimm stayed serious academics obsessed with German grammar. In 1838, Jacob Grimm began working on the Deutsches Wörterbuch, a comprehensive German dictionary. (Deutsches Wörterbuch means "German Dictionary") There's a myth that Jacob got stuck on the letter 'A,' but while his progress was slow due to his meticulous attention to detail, he did move beyond it. Jacob's perfectionism meant the dictionary was never finished in his lifetime. However, other scholars continued the work after his death, including his brother Wilhelm and later generations of linguists. The project spanned over 120 years and was finally completed in 1961, long after the brothers had passed away.

In addition to his work on the dictionary, Jacob Grimm made a groundbreaking discovery in linguistics: Grimm's Law. This rule outlined a systematic shift in consonants between Proto-Indo-European and Germanic languages, explaining sound changes like p to f (as in Latin pater becoming English father). Jacob wasn't just preserving stories; he was unraveling the mysteries of language itself and transforming the study of historical linguistics.

While Jacob did all that, Wilhelm refined and edited the fairy tales. Though often in poor health due to chronic respiratory and heart issues—conditions that stemmed from a childhood bout of scarlet fever—Wilhelm made the stories more accessible, softening some of their brutal elements. Recognizing that many readers were families and children, he toned down the violence and cruelty while reinforcing moral lessons. Wilhelm focused heavily on revising Kinder- und Hausmärchen and preparing new editions, ensuring the stories could be passed down in a form true to their roots—but without unnecessarily traumatizing every person who read them.

But the Brothers Grimm didn't do it all on their own. Enter Henriette Dorothea Grimm, also known as Dortchen—Wilhelm's wife and a key figure in the Brothers Grimms' success.

Henriette Dorothea Grimm

Born Henriette Dorothea "Dortchen" Wild, she was known to most as simply Dortchen—an affectionate nickname and diminutive form of Dorothea. She grew up near the Grimm family in the small town of Kassel in Hesse, Germany, and she formed a close friendship with Wilhelm Grimm during their childhood.

Dortchen Wild is considered by scholars to be the source of several of the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, including Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel, and The Frog Prince. It's thought that she got them from oral storytelling traditions passed down through her family and the local community. A handwritten note was discovered in the personal copy of the Grimms' first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen that attributes a specific verse from Hansel and Gretel to Dortchen Wild.

But where did Dortchen Wild get the story of Hansel and Gretel?

Dark Origin of Hansel and Gretel

About 500 years before Dortchen Wild helped the Brothers Grimm pen Hansel and Gretel, back in the early 1300s, Europe was at the edge of a disaster unlike anything anyone had ever seen. For decades, the population had been steadily growing, farming was booming, and life—while tough—was manageable. Unfortunately, the fragile farming balance began to collapse.

Over-farmed lands started to lose fertility, and backup food stores began to dwindle. The weather, which had been cooperative for years, suddenly changed. A perfect storm of bad luck and environmental disaster followed, which plunged Europe into chaos. The Great Famine of 1315–1317 began and hit harder than anyone could have imagined. It was a massive disaster, especially for Northern Europe, and Germany was in the thick of it.

In the spring of 1315, a relentless barrage of rainstorms hit, and Europe was stuck in a freezing, soggy mess for two long years. Fields were flooded, crops rotted in the ground, and the precious grain people relied on to survive practically vanished overnight. In a time when most folks depended on growing their own food, there was no safety net when the harvests failed. People were left scrambling for anything they could eat.

If you read the full story of Hansel and Gretel linked above or remember enough of the tale, you can guess where this is going. Germany, like everywhere else, was hit hard. Starvation crept in, taking lives and forcing the population into extreme survival mode. Entire villages emptied out, and people were driven to desperate measures—eating bark, roots, and, in some cases, opening up fresh graves and claiming the dead for food. Some older people chose voluntary starvation so the younger generation would have enough food and energy to continue working in the fields. Others decided to abandon their children in the forest to fend for themselves.

The parallels between Hansel and Gretel and the Great Famine of 1315–1317 are pretty striking, minus the whole "witch living in a candy house" thing—at least until the 1960s, when a man named Georg Ossegg claimed to have found the actual witch's house from the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel.

Georg Ossegg, The Truth About Hansel and Gretel, & Hans Traxler

A book named Die Wahrheit über Hänsel und Gretel (The Truth About Hansel and Gretel) was published in 1963, rocking Germany with what seemed to be an astonishing discovery. According to the book, an amateur archaeologist named Georg Ossegg had uncovered the real story behind the famous fairy tale. Hansel and Gretel, the book claimed, were not children but adult bakers who murdered a skilled "baker witch" to steal her secret gingerbread recipe. Complete with photos of supposed archaeological finds, including charred gingerbread and the remains of the witch's house, the book sparked national excitement. School groups flocked to the site, and the media eagerly reported this shocking "truth."

However, it was all an elaborate prank. The book's author, Hans Traxler, had invented the entire story, including the character of Georg Ossegg. Traxler himself posed as Ossegg in staged photos, wearing a trench coat, sunglasses, and a fake beard. The image above of Georg Ossegg in the ruins of the witch's house is actually Hans Traxler posing as his fictional character, Georg Ossegg. The archaeological "evidence" and historical manuscripts were entirely fabricated for the sake of the hoax. Even after the truth came out in 1964, many people refused to believe they had been fooled.

Despite the revelation, the book continued to sell well and even inspired a 1987 film adaptation. Traxler's prank not only poked fun at academic trends but also showed how easily people can be drawn to stories that promise hidden truths. In fact, the prank is still alive and well, and there are plenty of places reporting on it as fact. There are so many that it can be difficult to sort fact from fiction—perhaps one of Hans Traxler's goals.

Hansel and Gretel is sometimes confused with another Grimm tale called Brother and Sister. This confusion often arises because some versions of Hansel and Gretel have been published under the alternate title Little Brother and Little Sister. However, Brother and Sister is a separate story where a brother is turned into a deer, and his sister must save him from their evil stepmother. Further adding to the mix, Nennillo and Nennella, a variant of Brother and Sister found in Giambattista Basile's Pentamerone (1634), shares similar themes of sibling survival and protection. These overlapping titles and recurring motifs from older tales contribute to the confusion among readers.

​
This type of confusion is one of the many reasons why a catalog of folk tale types was created: the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index (ATU). This system classifies folktales by common themes and structures, helping scholars and readers better understand the differences between stories with similar plots. For instance, Hansel and Gretel is classified as ATU 327A ("The Children and the Ogre"), while Brother and Sister falls under ATU 450 ("Brother and Sister"). By organizing tales this way, the index helps avoid confusion and clarifies connections between different versions and variants of folk stories across cultures.

You can see even more photos and read more about the hoax at Atlas Obscura's How a Literary Prank Convinced Germany That 'Hansel and Gretel' Was Real by Jordan Todorov.

The story of Hansel and Gretel has always been about more than just breadcrumbs and witches; it's more about the brutal realities even children face and how easily fact and fiction can blur. It's part of human nature to look for hidden truths and dark secrets, even if they're uncomfortable or horrifying. In today's world, many of us grew up on fairy tales, and we know that, in fairy tales, things aren't always what they seem. But in reality, where trust is easily twisted, it can be much harder to discern truth from fiction—and the most dangerous thing isn't the witch in the woods; it's the stories we choose to believe.

Relevant & Related

• Listen to the podcast Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford, episode The Truth About Hansel and Gretel, for even more about the whole hoax by Hans Traxler.
• Louise Murphy's book The True Story of Hansel and Gretel transports the classic tale to Nazi-occupied Poland, where two Jewish children are hidden and must survive the horrors of war.
• In the novel Breadcrumbs, Anne Ursu spins a modern take on the fairy tale as Hazel embarks on a magical journey to rescue her best friend from a snow-covered forest.
• Adam Gidwitz's book A Tale Dark and Grimm sends Hansel and Gretel on a twisted adventure through other Grimm fairy tales, blending dark humor with gruesome twists.
• Way back in 2007, there was a South Korean horror film called Hansel & Gretel—about a man who gets lost in the woods and stumbles upon a house with strange children.
• In 2013, a film titled Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters depicted Hansel and Gretel as adult witch hunters. It's filled with grotesque witches and intense battles.
• Also, in 2013, another film called Hansel & Gretel: Get Baked had a comedic take with Hansel and Gretel battling a witch using drugged candy to lure teenagers.
• For a more serious take, 2020's Gretel and Hansen leaned into psychological horror with dark and eerie atmospheres and a sinister witch.
• In 1987, the feature-length film Ossegg oder Die Wahrheit über Hänsel und Gretel, loosely based on the hoax book, was released in Germany.

You might enjoy these other articles:

• ​The Tale of Père Fouettard​
• ​Mirrors: Superstition, Mythology, Psychology, & Sanity​
• ​Exploring Folk Tales: The Smith and the Devil​
• ​Armin Meiwes, aka the Rotenburg Cannibal​
• ​El Coco, El Cucuy: The Child Eater​
• ​Würzburg Witch Trials - Germany's Deadly 17th Century Witch Hunt