Bechloe Fairytales

Hansel and Gretel

Once upon a time a woodcutter lived at the edge of a great forest with his wife and their two children. They had a boy called Beca and a girl called Chloe. The family's house was very small, it was just a hut really, and they were very poor, often they had to go to bed without any food. The woodcutter and his wife worried a great deal, and as time went by their situation seemed to get worse and worse. There were just not enough people around who needed the woodsman's services. "How can we feed our children?" the woodcutter lamented, "when we have hardly enough to feed ourselves."

His wife cried quietly. "there's nothing for it", she said, "tomorrow we'll take them into the woods with us, and we'll lose them somehow. We just can't carry on like this." The woodcutter wasn't very happy when he heard his wife say this. "But what will happen to them, they'll be in danger. Anything could happen, some wild animal might come along and eat them alive!" But his wife had made up her mind. "What can we do? We have no choice; if we stay together, surely we'll all perish. At least if don't have their mouths to feed, we might stand a chance." Quietly her husband consented. He knew she was right, but he also knew that he was not able to take care of them.

Beca and Chloe were in their beds in the next room. They couldn't sleep either, and because the walls in their little house were so thin and flimsy, they had been able to hear the whole of their parents' conversation. Chloe was terrified. "Beca", she cried, what are we going to do? Are we going to die?" Beca was a very clever little boy. Immediately he had a plan. "Don't worry, Chloe", he whispered to his sister, "I'll think of something. Just try and get some sleep, and tomorrow, just act normal. Don't let our parents know that we've heard what they want to do." After a while Chloe did fall asleep, and the little boy lay there waiting patiently. Eventually he could hear his father snoring, and he knew that his parents were asleep too. He got up as quietly as he could, tiptoed through his parents' room, and went outside. There he collected lots of little white pebbles, as many as he could stuff in his pockets, and when they were full, he crept back inside and into his bed.

The next morning, at the crack of dawn, the children were woken up by their mother. Te only thing to have for breakfast was a little stale bread, which they ate quickly, and then they were off. They walked through the woods for several hours. The parents were very quiet, they hardly spoke a word, the woodsman walked ahead, determined, his wife followed and behind her Beca and Chloe came. Every now and then Beca would drop one of his little white pebbles in the middle of the path, or by the side of a rock, or by a tree root. He had almost used up all his pebbles when his father stopped in a little clearing in the wood. "Let's make a fire here", he said. "Then you children can have a little rest, while mother and I go into the woods to do some cutting." He made a small fire, the mother gave the children the last of the bread she had been saving, and then off she went with her husband. It only took a few seconds, and they disappeared amongst the trees. Beca and Chloe sat down by the fire and ate the bread. Then they sat and waited. They waited for an hour, then another hour and another. Eventually they got so tired from waiting that they fell asleep. When they finally woke up, it was the middle of the night. The fire had long ago gone out, but there was a full moon, so they could see quite clearly. Beca took his sister's hand, and they started walking back to where they'd come from. The bright moonlight meant that Beca had no trouble finding his little white pebbles. They played a game, who could spot the next pebble first, and the time went so fast and they made such good headway that before they realised how far they'd come they could see their little house. The door was open and they went inside, where their father was just getting up. He was absolutely delighted to see them, and threw his arms up in the air and cried for joy. Their mother too was happy to see them again. It had been very hard indeed for these poor people to leave their children in the middle of that dark wood, and now they were just so relieved that they had survived and that they were back together again.