Hansel and Gretel: The REAL Story

Author’s Note: I wrote this piece because I wanted to try a third person piece (usually I write first person). I got the idea of having the narrator ‘interfere’ more from a book I read awhile back, and in that book it was almost as if the narrator was talking directly to me.

All was well in the town of Allucaneat. The houses were repaired with even better quality candy, and the more grumpy witches became content again. The naughty children who thought they could blow up two big villages were taken care of. They were by no means killed, of course, and not one of the witches had tried. That’s just rubbish. I suppose that you know what your dear narrator’s talking about, right? I am, obviously, talking about Hansel and Gretel. Or, more specifically, the real story of Hansel and Gretel. What? You don’t know the real story? The actual happenings? How those meddling brats were actually the bad characters? How it was not just one witch’s house they tried to destroy, how it was a whole village? Hm, well, maybe you should sit down and read this, the real story, the most important one . . .

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There once was a quaint little village called Allucaneat. Mind you, it’s one single word, not three-and-a-third. Back to the story. If you happened to take a stroll in Allucaneat, you would have seen quite a bit a interesting houses. You would goggle at them, and polish your glasses and stare at them some more. I did that, too, long ago. I remember looking at the gumdrop roofs against the blue sky, and running my hands down the polished and thin caramel windows, which had just a slight tinge of toffee color.  The bigger houses had crystallized sugar windows that were very pretty, and butterflies often flocked there. The birds that visited the village regularly preferred to peck at the Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate bricks, and the squirrels stored Jawbreaker decorative pebbles under the snow in winter. Occasionally, a bee flew through the open archway doors and landed contentedly on a non-sticky Butterfinger or a hardened-honey chair. Not all the furniture were made of candy and sweets, but most were. Circles of Lifesavers and giant logs of Jolly Ranchers piled together formed a passable candy road that melted into the normal roads and stuck onto the edible green-grass made of thin sheets of pure sugar. Instead of turning colors in fall, the leaves on the magical candy trees turned flavors. Flowers formed lollipops, and after you were done eating them, you would throw the lollipop’s stick onto the ground and watch another flower grow.

The best thing about the whole place, though, were the witches living there. Wait, why are you looking at me like that? What did you expect to see living in there? Pelicans? Of course it’s witches, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to keep the candy nice and soft, gooey and fresh! These witches were not regular witches though, definitely not! They were the dainty and sweet candy witches, and they weren’t dangerous at all, since they couldn’t do a drop of magic unless it was related to candy. Candy witches eat candy breakfast, lunch and dinner, so they always ate parts of their own village. Next morning, the part that they ate would have already grown back. Candy witches read, eat, watch TV, and eagerly wait for the arrival of the new iPod. Candy witches are exactly like you or I, except for the magic part. And, unlike some people these days, they are very nice, almost too nice. If you came across the town of Allucaneat, by the time you got out, you would be carrying pounds of free candy, and if you were a girl, you would have gotten quite a bit of clothes, too. They even lived in peace with the village over, and supplied the humans there with delicious candy straight from their wands.

The village over happened to be the town of Wegitcandy. This was a regular village, with cobblestone roads and red brick houses, and was located just over the hill.  The people who lived there were pleasant, although not as pleasant as the witches. Occasionally, two or three mean and unpleasant people moved in, but they usually were driven away by the niceness of the rest of the citizens. “How d’you do? I see you are buying some milk, so why don’t you take a free bottle?” The shopkeepers were especially nice.

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One day, two naughty and nasty children were caught while running on the grass in the town of Wegitcandy. They were, of course, Hansel and Gretel. Those two little, not-so-innocent children were caught stealing some of the candy witches’ most famous exports, the Peppermint Dragon, the Bouncing Banana Bean, and the Chewbacca Chocolate. These were considered the the most peppery, bouncy, and terrifying candies of the world. Some of their ads include: “A peppermint so peppery it breathes fire in your mouth!” “Bounce and eat, bounce some more, it’s the new Bouncing Banana Bean!” and “The Chewbacca Chocolate will terrorize your taste buds!”   Each of the candies looked like the name. For example, the Peppermint Dragon looked like a white, sparkling dragon. To steal even one piece of these candies would result in serious punishment. However, along with pick-pocketing, Hansel and Gretel were also famous for their bullying, so their punishment would be even worse, because nobody really liked them. Many even hoped it was banishment from Wegitcandy. Because ever since the Sticklebottoms moved in, life in Wegitcandy was never the same.

Hansel, Gretel, and their father Mr. Sticklebottom moved in a couple years ago. Right away, Hansel took advantage of the nicest kids, and sent them crying to their mothers. Gretel charmed the village boys, and rejected them harshly one by one. After all the other village children knew to avoid them, Hansel and Gretel both started insulting and throwing stuff at everyone. The village adults knew how to deal with horrid grown-ups, but children were children, and nobody dared harm them. For a while, everyone hoped that the father would help with the situation, but Mr. Sticklebottom thought Hansel and Gretel were wonderful, innocent children, and he would threaten anybody who would say otherwise.

And now, because of the father, the villagers ended up with a not-so-severe sentence for Hansel and Gretel. The punishment ended up to be Hansel doing 100 push-ups each day for a year, and Gretel sewing a piece of clothing for everyone in the village once a week. Both would have to give up candy for five years. No one was particularly happy about this punishment: the citizens of the village because it was not horrible enough to really make up for the evil deeds done; Hansel because his arms had pea-sized muscles; and Gretel because she despised sewing.

The little tattletales complained to their father about the sentence every night. “Ugh, my arms are sore!” and “Owwie! My fingers are pwicked!” and even, “Oof, Father, I think I broke my wrist doing these push-ups!” Their rather pathetic excuses somehow convinced the father that the villagers were “obviously trying to kill the poor children, and the villagers had to chase the father out of Wegitcandy so nobody would get run over by a horse.

Now, Hansel and Gretel were technically homeless. None of the people of Wegitcandy wanted them running around unsupervised, and nobody wanted to adopt them, but something had to be done. A little girl named Alice suggested that Hansel was sent to the far side of Allucaneat, and Gretel the near side. Many people agreed with this, not including the trouble-makers themselves. So, Hansel and Gretel were both transported on the candy witches’ pet foxes to Allucaneat. As soon as the foxes carrying Hansel and Gretel stepped over Wegitcandy’s boundaries, everyone was immediately relieved. Little did they know, however, that there was going to be trouble, big  trouble, soon . . .

Brother and sister arrived at their destinations. The foxes unceremoniously dumped them, and hurried off to wherever they lived. Hansel and Gretel found that they would be living in a small, regular brick cottages, both built specifically for them. Inside the cottage contained self- refilling food jars, self-replenishing water bottles, self-washing clothing, and any other self-blankity-blank-blank items that the candy witches deemed suitable for living in the woods.  No candy was involved, just so the children wouldn’t be too happy with their conditions.

The witches decided to give weekly visits, to check on how the prisoners were doing. At first, the witches would find Gretel screeching at the top of her lungs for “Someone who can GET ME OUT OF THIS DUMP!!”, and Hansel biting and kicking anybody who came close. After a few days, Gretel eventually gave up screaming and sulkily paced around her cottage. Hansel appeared settled in, however, his evil mind was spinning and weaving a plan. He posted a “Stay AWAY” sign at the front of “his” yard, and got right to work. He wrote up blueprints, built his dastardly weapons, and fine-tuned his rather hard-to-carry-out plan.

Now, you might be wondering why it was Hansel doing this, not Gretel. You see, Hansel had gone to a particular school called “Saint Molasses’ Training School For Horrible and Uneducated Kids”, while Gretel went to “Saint Sweet’s Normal School For Young Lads and Lasses”. The difference in these schools were that Saint Molasses’ had much more vigorous, unpleasant ways of educating children, while Saint Sweet’s was too nice. Therefore, Hansel had gotten more education, and Gretel wouldn’t have understood even a smidge of the technicalities in Hansel’s plan. Barely understood the process of adding, too.

Now, back to young and horrible Hansel. As a reader, you get to know things that many people in the story will not. For example, I am now going to tell you Hansel’s secret and deadly plan; or at least part of it. This scheme revolved heavily on explosive bread crumbs, and Gretel’s help was also involved, so Hansel had to get to Gretel’s cottage soon. It also depended on Hansel’s muscles, but he tried not to think about that. The plan was to carry out the next ‘morrow.

The sun was making it’s slow ascent into the puffy white clouds and the  blue sky. Hansel tugged on his black clothes, although why he would be wearing all black like a ninja in daylight made absolutely no sense. I suppose he wanted to feel like he was a professional. Hansel slowly crept out of the cottage, carrying his secret weapon in a blue-colored sack. He passed the now too cold and wasted porridge resting on the table outside, and made his way toward the trees that grew between his cottage and Gretel’s.

The trees were magical, and their loyalties lied with the candy witches who had nursed them to health when these kinds of trees were almost extinct. The pine dutifully poked Hansel painfully, and the cedar followed instructions by waving its branches all about as to confuse Hansel. These tactics, combined with about 200 other trees, were very successful. However, the trees had forgot one thing. While they were so busy trying to drive Hansel out of the forest, they totally forgot about the part where they were not supposed to lead Hansel to Gretel’s cottage.

Greedy Gretel was playing with un-edible dolls which she had stolen from the witch children who were taking “How to Fit in With Humans” classes. As she was ripping the dolls’ arms apart, she suddenly spotted Hansel emerging from a clump of thrashing branches. With a cry of evil delight, she leapt up and ran over.

Hansel quickly explained the plan to Gretel, who, despite her grades in school, had a very good listening skills when it came to dastardly schemes. After the quick briefing, the plan was put into action. Gretel screamed piercingly, ensuring that the candy witches were distracted. Then, Hansel started running. He sprinted around Allucaneat, spreading his deadly bread crumbs on the way. Fortunately, he got tired after jogging a fourth of the village, and had to stop and rest. Why weren’t the bread crumbs exploded as he went, readers may ask. Well, I have the privilege to tell you. If the crumbs were exploded in small section as Hansel went, then the witches would be able to use magic to quickly fix it up. If the crumbs were exploded in one big instant, then the witches would be overpowered by all the salt in the bread. Yes, Hansel had wickedly and ingeniously added tons of salt --- a candy witch’s worst enemy.

As Hansel made his way around the village at a snail’s pace, the candy witches who visited Gretel had speedily figured out that the two brats were planning something. A young witch, Melissa, hurried around Allucaneat and Wegitcandy to spread the news. All non-magical citizens were to evacuate, as everyone had smartly realized there was something about a bomb in Hansel’s plans. Gretel was recaptured and put into a Cool Whip prison, where she is currently residing as a old woman of age 121.

After Gretel was dealt with, the candy witches started on the immediate problem of bread crumbs. Slow he was, Hansel had spread bread crumbs over half of Allucaneat.  Inexperienced young witches tried magicking the explosives away, and found themselves being banished to Antarctica. The group decided to split in two, one to go after Hansel to see if they could stop him from detonating the crumbs, and another to stay at the village hall and figure out a solution to the problem.

Meanwhile, Hansel was still huffing and puffing and trying to get around the whole of Allucaneat. He had tried to enlist the help of three magical candy pigs, who for some reason thought he was a wolf. Hansel said that later, he would eat them for breakfast. This did not help the cause. Hansel decided evilly that he would explode the bread crumbs around the pigs’ house first. He took out something shaped like a skull and started fiddling with it. Luckily, at this moment the small group of witches arrived. They immediately saw the detonator, and a wise candy witch well-practiced in the art of witchery made the detonator zoom right out of Hansel’s hands with a couple of rock sugar spears. Three other witches bound the villain and cast him to the same jail as his partner in crime: The Cool Whip Prison of Candyzban.

Explosive over-salted bread crumbs, as it turns out, are very easy to get rid of. All you have to is dump sugared pepper on the bread to make the crumb sneeze out the explosive part, which is full of a high-in-allergies metal called Salted Silver. Sugared pepper tends to spread easily, too. The candy witches who stayed at the village hall soon found themselves facing a bunch of harmless bread crumbs, and birds soon started flocking there.

As you can see, all ended well. Several resistant bread crumbs exploded, but there was minimal damage. Soon, both Allucaneat and Wegitcandy were settled, and life went back to what it was before the Evil Sticklebottom Twins. Quiet, pleasant, and sweet.

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One day, the Brothers Grimm were looking through history books. They were immensely bored, as that was what happens to one when they look at history. Suddenly, one of the brothers spotted the story of Hansel and Gretel, and of the candy witches. The other brother looked over, and decided that that would make a good story, especially with the witches, candy and bread crumbs.

“Of course, we’re going to have to change it up, “ one brother reminded, “Nobody likes history, and our books wouldn’t have sold at all if we didn’t change the real story up . . . and who likes nice candy witches and quaint little villages anyway?”

Hansel and Gretel were turned into angelic little kids. Candy witches were transformed into one, child-eating witch that reflected the real Hansel and Gretel’s nastiness. Allucaneat, the village, turned into Allucaneat, the house, and Wegitcandy was totally erased.

Parents now tell the Brothers Grimm bestselling story “Hansel and Gretel” to their children at bedtime. If you had heard the story before, you probably had shuddered at the thought of the witch, and gasped at the children’s bravery. You went to bed feeling scared of a creepy witch who would eat you, and dreaming of delicious yet evil candy houses.

But now you know the real story.

A footnote: Wondering what happened to candy witches? Where are they in this modern society? To my knowledge, they hide in the mountains, with their candy houses and all their magic. Which country, I cannot be sure. Wegitcandy is also somewhere, but this is the extent of my knowledge.

I hope you use the truth well, and farewell, dear Reader!