Cannibalism & Witchcraft: The True Story of "Hansel and Gretel"

Comments · 2.4K

• CT

  @ctubbs8715 · 3 years ago

  It is easy to take the abundance of the modern world for granted. It's scary to think that if our food ran out, we all could be back in the same situation as Hansel and Gretel 's parents in a short time.

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• EV

  @everettlopez9127 · 3 years ago (edited)

  you have the perfect voice for video essays. these tales of child cannibalism are so soothing to my ears

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• KA

  @karennorris7880 · 3 years ago

  This story frightened me as a child. In the version I'm familiar with, Hansel would trick the which into thinking he was not yet fattened up by using a stick to fool the blind witch into thinking it was his finger.  Little Red Riding Hood scared me also.

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• MO

  @mooningmanz · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cmsVRR5bFI&amp;t=308">5:08</a> nah I think the witch living in the house made of bread and cake was probably the most bizarre part of this story

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• TH

  @TheVioletWolf · 3 years ago (edited)

  I wonder… my ex-husband used to work as a neurodiagnostics tech in a children’s hospital, and most of the “non-accidental trauma” done to children were of the step dads or the mom’s boyfriends… but that’s because a lot of the mothers of these poor babies were working while the guy was a home watching them. Back when the evil stepmother trope came about is because then it was 100% likely that men worked and women stay back to care for the kiddies.

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• HE

  @heidismutti · 3 years ago

  Stepmothers were super common as so many women died in childbirth. The stepmother was eager to do away with the OG children do her own children could inherit better.

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• JU

  @julienicol9202 · 3 years ago (edited)

  I took a German fairy tale course in university, what is interesting is that originally the Brothers Grimm didn’t intend on having the stories be for children but they did eventually in later years publish a book intended for children as well as others copying the stories and publishing them too, this didn’t change much of the violence in the stories though. In actuality a lot of stories that later became fairytales were originally intended for an adult audience and contained a lot of sexual references and innuendos, the Brothers Grimm changed the stories so all of the sexual stuff was gone because they were scholars in good standing and very religious (they put a lot of Christian symbols in their versions of fairy tales, like sightings of doves by characters etc) and didn’t mind the violence but the sexual stuff was very much a no no for them. This makes sense in the context of them being very familiar with the bible and the violence in it. The violence in their stories is either “well deserved” in their eyes as in “God punishes the bad and evil characters for their sins” or it’s pointed out that it’s wrong and the good characters get saved somehow for the most part. I’m not saying that it’s a good thing that they left it in I just think that somethings would fly back then that would not today. Us and the Brothers Grimm live in vastly different times in lots of aspects. Edit: Also they usually changed the “bad mothers” or “evil mothers” to “step mothers” because they loved their own mother so much and didn’t want anyone to even have a chance to think that they may not like their own mother, they always wanted to honour her.

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• ER

  @erikgilson1687 · 3 years ago

  Where did Hansel get the breadcrumbs if they were starving. Sounds like he was holding out on bread he&apos;d stashed

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• KA

  @Kannot2023 · 3 years ago

  The purpose of fairy tales is to prepare kids for life not to entertain.

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• NE

  @nevermind.1335 · 1 year ago

  After 1812 they did write these fairytales for children though!! They are purposely called &quot;Kinder- und Hausmärchen&quot; in Germany, meaning fairytales for children at home. The Grimms had a clear pedagogical intent, which also includes collecting and demonstrating the cultural values ofc. This can even be found in their introduction paragraph of the originals :)

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• JI

  @jimmyjimmy7240 · 3 years ago (edited)

  It wasn&apos;t &quot;shockingly common,&quot; it was &quot;expectedly rare.&quot; There are very few accounts of cannibalism we have on record or through folk tale. During the great famine, that last a couple years, there are accounts of cannibalism, for example, although the specifics are often left out.<br><br>I dig your platform, though. Cool video style.

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• KI

  @kitten_0078 · 3 years ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cmsVRR5bFI&amp;t=306">5:06</a> the music in the background is called Trollmors Vaggvisa and is a Swedish lullaby. My mother always used to sing it to me and my brother. It&apos;s about a troll mother singing to her 11 small trolls to sleep basically.

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