Dec 05 2020 24 mins
This is HUGE! For the month of DECEMBER the LOST IN THE RABBIT HOLE podcast will be a TWO PARTER!
Join me as I delve into the variant tales of abandoned children. Hansel and Gretel are only a part of this story.
We begin: "Long, long ago, beside one such Winter forest there lived a poor woodcutter with his wife and their two children – a little boy and a little girl. They lived humbly in a house made of wattle and daub, all snug together under their thatch roof. There was a little coop around back for the chickens, and the woodcutter’s wife kept a vegetable garden full of lush, ripe tomatoes in the summer and squash in the fall. The house was perfectly placed between two aspen sentries, each guarding a side."
Come along down the sugared path and I promise, no one will bite.
PART TWO is available immediately.
Versions Referenced in this episode:
- "Little Brother and Little Sister" aka "Hansel and Gretel" (Germany, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, 1812-1840)
- "Ninnillo and Nennella" (Italy, Giambattista Basile, 1635) also here
- "Little Thumb" aka "Hop on my Thumb" (France, Charles Perrault, 1697)
- "Jan and Hanna" (Poland, author unknown, 1863)
- "Finette Cedron" aka Cunning Cinders, (France, Marie-Catherine D'Aulnoy, 1967)
- "Little Earth Cow" (Alsace, Martin Montanus, 1557)
Reference Materials
The Golden Age of Folk and Fairy Tales: From the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang by Jack Zipes
The Classic Fairytales, Iona and Peter Opie
The Third Horseman A STORY OF WEATHER, WAR, AND THE FAMINE HISTORY FORGOT By William Rosen