Folk Tales No. 31

Hansel & Greta ....

There lived a family in the cottage in a sizeable faram on a reasonable piece of land which resides in a properrous country within the plains of the larger continent next to large oceans on all all sides, but our story will stick to a radius of walking distance. For its from here, two kids named Hansel and Greta choose to start a new adventure. Now to give you a background on Hansel and Greta, they are normal kids with the unfortunate choice of having their natural mother dead before she can see these kids grow. So the young father of the younger family decided that he needed a mother for his younger kids, and thus he married a lady from the nearby village. Of course, he courted her, introduced her to the kids, and explain the conditions of their marriage which includes custody of the kids. So all terms and conditions agreed, they went on a longer courtship before they married. Now Hansel and Greta are bright kids; they have a great time with many things their father gave them. These are very lucky kids, and they enjoyed it. Now the new mother was not told that she has to do a lot of houseworks alone, but she did so she could not had time to see the kids much while working.

So one day, Hansel and Greta packed up for a walk in the woods nearby, and GPS for directions. And of course Mineral Water, in case of thirst. So the young kids set off to the woods. They walked and walked, stopping to looked at the fauna and flowers, picking on beautiful dainty ones too. After a long walk, they took a rest and drank their water. Then they felt hungry and so Greta said; ‘lets head back’. They tried to retrace their journey, but they were not sure where they are. So Hansel took out his GPS unit and activated it. But the trees leaves was blocking it from reading the signal, so they moved on trying to find a good spot with clear reception. They did finally discovered a clearing and off went the unit due to lack of power. So after trying to locate a power source in the woods and arguing on whose responsibility it was to re-charge the unit, they came across a cottage. So they went up to the door and knocked. The door was opened by a old lady with a crooked hat and an equally crooked smile. She heard their story and offered them food and shelter. But she had no power source as she lived in the woods. But the kids was too hungry to asked more of the old lady who lived all alone in the woods, so they just ate the food offered and soon slept on the bed provided.

When Greta woke up, she finds herself in a cage and Hansel was cutting woods for the fire place. It turned out the old lady is a lonely lady with intentions to keep these kids as slaves. So she made them work and work but only one at anytime, while the other sits in the cage. Not too bad as they get 12 hours of work for equal hours of rest, and there was food. But no TV makes Hansel and Greta sad kids. So one day, Greta saw her chance to escape the agony of working here. She boiled a large pot of water with intention to make onion soup. She cut the onions and was weeping away, and so the old lady asked why is she crying. She said, I cannot do both works at the same time, cutting the onions and tending the fire to boil the water. So the old lady said; ‘I will tend to the boiling’. So she did, and Greta said, ‘ can you see if the water is boiling?’ The old lady being hampered by poor bone structure, climbed up the stool and peek down the boiling water. As she was doing it, Greta pushed her in and let her get boiled with the water. Greta then freed her brother and ran out of the cottage.

‘How are we going to find our way home?’ asked Hansel.

‘Pa always said, if in trouble, run for home. As home is where love is always there and you will always find it there.’ And so they did, after running for days, they managed to reach home without any GPS to guide them. And they were relieved and will not drink onion soup for a long time.

( No matter how troubled you are, home is your sanctuary of love. And prepare yourself with the basics skills, when all else fails, these will work still. )