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The Witch is the main antagonist of the fairytale of Hansel & Gretel (though in some versions, she is known as the Gingerbread Hag and in Engelbert Humperdink's 1892 opera she is called Rosina Leckermaul, the German translation of the name being "Raisin Sweet-tooth"). She is portrayed as an evil and cannibalistic witch who resides in a home made out of gingerbread and other assorted sweets, which she uses to lure the two protagonists into her home with the intention of eating them. She is one of folklore's best known characters, and the idea of a gingerbread house and witch has been recycled countless times in many movies, cartoons and comic books.
Biography[]
Hansel and Gretel were two unfortunate children who had been abandoned in the forest by their father on the request of their wicked stepmother due to a famine. Despite Hansel's clever attempt to find his way home using bread crumbs, the two children end up lost in the forest due to birds eating the aforementioned trail.
Lost and hungry, the two children stumble across a house made of gingerbread and decorated with all manner of sweets belonging to the Witch, after following a white bird. Unable to contain themselves the two children begin to eat the house. The Witch comes out of the house, pretending to be a kind old woman. The Witch offers them to stay the night, promising them safety. The children come inside the house and the Witch gives them a dinner of pancakes, milk, apples, and nuts. After finishing their dinner, the children go to bed. In the morning, The Witch proceeds to lock Hansel in a cage while forcing Gretel to do housework and cooking food to feed Hansel food to fatten him up in preparation for her eating him. The Witch perodically asks Hansel to stick out his finger so she can see if he has become fat. Hansel, however, always sticks out a bone to fool the Witch into thinking it is his finger. The Witch has poor eyesight and she is tricked into believing he is too thin. Four weeks pass and the Witch still believes that Hansel is too thin due to his plan of fooling her using the bone always succeeding. Impaitent, the Witch decides to kill, cook, and eat Hansel regardless of whether he is fat or not. The Witch tells Gretel to go inside the oven to see if it is hot enough, planning to cook her first. Gretel tells the Witch that she does not know how, angering the Witch. The Witch demonstrates and Gretel pushes her into the oven, burning her to death.
Gretel frees Hansel from the cage and tells him that the Witch is dead. They gather some of the Witch's treasure and return home with the help of a white duck (swan in some variants).
Moral[]
The likely moral of this fairytale is to be wary of strangers. In many ways, it was the first "don't take candy from strangers" type tale - though in sad reality the story was likely not so much designed as a moral one, but rather a reflection on the fact that in medieval times, many families were forced to abandon their children during times of famine. This is reflected in the fact that the original fairytale had no stepmother in it, but rather had the children's true mother convince her husband to abandon her children so they could be adopted by someone who could give them a better life.
Other Media[]
The Candy Witch from Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.
- The unidentified Witch, under the name "Candy Witch", serves as both the owner of the "Candy House as well as of her ineffectual magic wand and a minor antagonist in the beginning of the 2013 supernatural dark fantasy movie Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.
- The Witch also appears as the main antagonist in the Nippon Animation anime series episode Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, which adapts the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. In this version of the story, more expanded than the original, she displays very high powers such as telekinesis, transformation of matter, flight and metamorphosis, as she transforms into a skeletal demon with a canine head and bat wings. At the end of the story, after having revealed to Gretel her intentions to kill and eat her, she engages in a brief fight with Hansel, managing to overpower him and trying to drag him into the oven to roast him, ending up herself in the oven and causing a fire in an attempt to free herself. She briefly manages to survive, as the two children will see her face emerge from the flames, only to be consumed with a horrible scream of agony. In this version, too, the white bird who leads Hansel and Gretel to her candy house is nothing more than a little shapeshifting demon in her service.
- The Witch appears in Once Upon a Time named as the Blind Witch. This version lives in a colorful Gingerbread House. She is the main antagonist of the episode "True North" and returns in the fifth season as a resident of the Underworld, having been sent there after being burned to death by Regina Mills's fire spell. A second version appears in the seventh season as a member of the Coven of the Eight.
- The Witch has a counterpart who appears in the Disney short Babes in the Woods, once again as the main antagonist. She is turned into a statue in the end of the short.
Holda the Witch from Gretel & Hansel.
- The Witch, yet her name is "Holda", serves as the main antagonist of the 2020 supernatural horror film Gretel & Hansel. Her house in the film is not made out of gingerbread nor decorated with all manners of other confectionery treats like in the original fairytale, but rather it is constructed out of wood and with a triangular roof above the main entrance door within the perimeter of its iron bar gate within her woods, most importantly, her house does contain all sorts of food including some cookies and cake as well as "milk" (yet strangely there was nothing in her forest for anyone to draw milk, not even a cow) used to charm and entice children "invited" in.
- In the cartoon show 2 Stupid Dogs, the Witch appears in a more comical capacity in the cartoon "Red Strikes Back." This version of the Witch is tall, svelte, and very attractive-looking. She also has the ability to both shapeshift and make things appear and disappear by cracking her trusty whip. However, rather than Hansel and Gretel, whom she expects to show up at her house, she is instead surprised by the appearance of the two titular characters and Little Red Riding Hood, who completely missed the house of the latter's grandmother. Growing impatient waiting for her own quarry, the Witch decides to make do and invites Red and the dogs in. She tries to fatten her up with a smorgasbord of food, during which time she attempts to eat Red without even cooking her by taking a bite out of her. She instead chomps her wig, much to Red's annoyance, and gets a kick to the shin for her troubles. Angered by this, the Witch cracks her whip to lock Red in a cage and forces the two dogs to repeatedly give her food. Red willingly takes and eats the food, but unlike Hansel's various versions, she does not fool the Witch with bones (as this version of the Witch, unlike other versions, has perfect eyesight and thus would not be fooled by this ploy), and before long, she balloons up to a considerable weight. Seeing this, the Witch decides that she is fat enough to eat, cracks her whip to turn her cage into a cannon, fires her into the air, and turns herself into a giant frog. In this form, she catches Red in her open mouth and swallows her alive and whole. But despite this, she decides that she is still hungry and, after cornering the two dogs, applies canned cheese to their heads and devours them for dessert. Despite the comical intention, this version of the Witch ultimately proved just as dangerous as previous versions and stands out as the only version of the Witch to actually succeed in her goal of eating a child.
Trivia[]
- Though Gretel pushes the Witch into the oven in most versions of the story, some other versions, especially those for younger children, have Gretel not doing anything and the Witch falling into the oven by accidentally tripping into it. This is likely done to not make Gretel look like a murderess.
- Some have theorized that the Witch and the Stepmother are the same character due to them dying at the same time.
- In the stage play Hansel and Gretel by Franz von Pocci, the Witch is replaced by a cannibalistic naturalist called Professor Fleischmann.
External Links[]
- The Witch on the Pure Evil Wiki
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