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Currently Playing: The Dark Origins of Hansel and Gretel | Monstrum

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateStoried ↓ More info below ↓ Hansel and Gretel is one of the most famous fairy tales of the Western world, and contains one of the most notorious witches. The cannibal witch lives in an edible house in the woods, tricks children into her home, and keeps them prisoner. Add in some evil parents, a gingerbread house, and baking people in ovens and you’ve got herself a pretty scary story. What could possibly have prompted the creation of this twisted tale? In this episode you’ll learn about witch trials in Germany, the role famine and poverty play in creating monsters, and how the Grimm brothers evolved oral folklore into legendary tales. The real story of Hansel and Gretel is even more scary than you think. #hanselandgretel #Germanfolklore #BrothersGrimm #MonstrumPBS Written and Hosted by: Dr. Emily Zarka Director: David Schulte Executive Producer: Amanda Fox Producer: Stephanie Noone Illustrator: Samuel Allen Editor: Derek Borsheim, Ryan Darbonne Produced by Spotzen for PBS Digital Studios. Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monstrumpbs/ ----------- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Fisher, Burton D.. Humperdink’s Hansel and Gretel (Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series), Opera Journeys Publishing, 2000. Grimm, Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm. Kinder- und Hausmärchen. 2 Bände, Band 1, Berlin 1812/15, S. 49-58. http://www.zeno.org/Literatur/M/Grimm,+Jacob+und+Wilhelm/Märchen/Kinder-+und+Hausmärchen+(1812-15)/Erster+Band/15.+Hänsel+und+Gretel. Kord, Susanne. “Women as Children, Women as Childkillers: Poetic Images of Infanticide in Eighteenth-Century Germany.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 26, no. 3, 1993, pp. 449–466. Lang, Andrew. The Blue Fairy Book. Longmans, Green, and Co., c. 1889, pp. 231-241. https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/perrault08.html. Lewis, Margaret Brannan. Infanticide and Abortion in Early Modern Germany, Routledge, 2016. Macfarlane, A. The Savage Wars of Peace: England, Japan and the Malthusian Trap. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. The Oxford English Dictionary Sutton, Martin. The Sin Complex: A Critical Study of English Versions of the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmarchen in the Nineteenth Century. Kassel: 1996. The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. Ed. Jack Zipes. Oxford University Press, 2000. Voland, Eckart, et al. “Population Increase and Sex-Biased Parental Investment in Humans: Evidence from 18th-and 19th-Century Germany.” Current Anthropology, vol. 38, no. 1, 1997, pp. 129–135. Zika, Charles. “Cannibalism and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Reading the Visual Images.” History Workshop Journal, no. 44, 1997, pp. 77–105. Zipes, Jack. Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children, and the Culture Industry. Routledge: 1997.