Hansel and Gretel

One of my favourite topics in Literacy has to be 'Traditional Fairytales'. Children just don't seem to know as many stories as they used to, and it's always surprising how many haven't even heard of classics such as Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin and Hansel & Gretel. So every morning this week we've read a traditional story together, and it's been lovely. This morning, my story of choice was Hansel and Gretel.

It was horrific.

I'd already explained to the class how there are many different versions of the same story, and how authors such as the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson weren't afraid to write about unpleasant events and people. (As an example, we compared two different versions of Little Red Riding Hood- one where the wolf swallows Grandma whole but then gets sliced open by the woodcutter, and another where a book falls off a shelf onto his head, giving him a headache so he forgets about eating Grandma in the first place and becomes a much nicer person.)

But it was only when reading Hansel and Gretel that I realised how scary some of the stories really are. Not only do the poor children have abandonment issues after being left in a forest by their wicked stepmother (on three separate occasions), they then get tempted by a seemingly lovely lady who has lots of sweets and goodies, and promises to take care of them. Only it turns out that she's actually a cannibal who loves eating children, and one of them gets locked in a cage and is force fed until he gets fat enough for a juicy meal. While this is going on, poor Gretel is made a slave and has to work all night and day, terrified of the wicked child-eating lady. (I have never seen my class so gripped by a plotline...) It all turned out alright in the end though, as Gretel eventually pushes the woman into her own oven and cooks her alive. And they lived happily ever after.

Terrifying, non?

The best part of the lesson was when I asked "So, what do you think the moral of this story is?" to be greeted with the reply, "If you see a gingerbread house, don't go inside it".

I thought that Hansel and Gretel would make a rather good horror movie. But when I browsed YouTube for a cartoon version to show the class, I discovered that some bright sparks in South Korea had already jumped on that bandwagon. You've got to admit, the music is a little creepy.