The Old Woman had only pretended to be so kind. She was really a wicked Witch, who lay in wait for children, and who had built the little bread house in order to entice them there. When a child fell into her power, she killed it, cooked, and ate it; and that was a feast-day with her.
Witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but they have a keen scent like the beasts’, and are aware when human beings draw near. When Haensel and Grethel came into her neighborhood, she laughed maliciously, and said mockingly, “I have them, they shall not escape me again!”
Early in the morning before the children were awake, she was up. And when she saw both of them sleeping and looking so pretty, with their plump red cheeks, she muttered to herself, “That will be a dainty mouthful!”
Then she seized Haensel with her shrivelled hand, carried him into a little stable, and shut him in with a grated door. He might scream as he liked, that was of no use!
Then she went to Grethel, shook her till she awoke, and cried, “Get up, lazy thing, fetch some water, and cook something good for your brother. He is in the stable outside, and is to be made fat. When he is fat, I will eat him.”
Grethel began to weep bitterly. But it was all in vain, she was forced to do what the wicked Witch ordered her.
And now the best food was cooked for poor Haensel, while Grethel got nothing but crab-shells. Every morning the woman crept to the little stable, and cried, “Haensel, stretch out your finger that I may feel if you will soon be fat.”
When four weeks had gone by she was seized with impatience and would not wait any longer. “Ho, there! Grethel,” she cried to the girl, “be active, and bring some water. Let Haensel be fat or lean, to-morrow I will kill him, and cook him.”
Ah! how the poor little sister did lament when she had to fetch the water, and how her tears did flow down over her cheeks! “Dear God, do help us,” she cried. “If the wild beasts in the forest had but devoured us, we should at any rate have died together!”
“Just keep your noise to yourself,” said the Old Woman, “all that won’t help you at all.”