Oldal 117 [117]
‘HANSEL: AND: GRETHEL
EAR a great forest there lived a poor
woodcutter and his wife, and his two
children ; the boys name was Hansel
and the girl’s Grethel. ‘They had very
little to bite or to sup, and once, when
there was great dearth in the land, the
man could not even gain the daily
bread. As he lay in bed one night
thinking of this, and turning and tos¬
sing, he sighed heavily, and said to his wife,
“What will become of us? we cannot even feed our
children ; there is nothing left for ourselves.”
“‘T will tell you what, husband,” answered the wife ; “we
will take the children early in the morning into the forest,
where it is thickest; we will make them a fire, and we will
give each of them a piece of bread, then we will go to our
work and leave them alone ; they will never find the way home
again, and we shall be quit of them.”
“No, wife,” said the man, “I cannot do that; I cannot
find in my heart to take my children into the forest and to
leave them there alone; the wild animals would soon come
and devour them.”
“© you fool,” said she, “then we will all four starve ;
you had better get the coffins ready,’—and she left him no
peace until he consented.
‘But I really pity the poor children,” said the man.
The two children had not been able to sleep for hunger, and
had heard what their step-mother had said to their father.
Grethel wept bitterly, and said to Hansel,
' i
hu a arth (a
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kéz
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