Week 6 Storytelling: A Way Out

There once lived a poor couple that lived together for years and eventually had seven daughters. The family was unable to be close since the father was always working and the wife just sat around the house and ignored the children. Out of the seven daughters, the two younger daughters that turned five years of age began to throw tantrums. After a month of dealing with their fits, the father and mother were unable to bare it any longer.

Since the family was so poor, they could hardly afford food. So on one afternoon when the father went hunting in the woods close to their house he found seven fat quail eggs. He immediately took them back to his home and decided to keep the quail eggs for only him and his wife. The wife agreed and cooked them while the daughters fell asleep. Both of the younger girls came downstairs to see what their mother was cooking. With a feeling of guilt arising in her, the wife whispered to the girls that she would give them two eggs if they didn’t tell their sisters. The daughters agreed with a nod and took the eggs back to their room. 

The father sat at the table eagerly waiting for the eggs to be ready. But once the wife placed the plate of only five eggs on the counter he immediately grew into a rage and slammed his fork down demanding what happened with the others. The wife explained to him she felt bad and gave it to the girls. The husband then called the two youngest daughters down to the kitchen and demanded them to get fully dressed.

Once the girls got down to the kitchen, the father changed his façade and smiled asking them, “do you girls want to go visit grandma?”

            The children jumped up and down in glee and agreed for they loved visiting their grandmother. The wife was confused at her husband’s actions and thought he had a change of heart so she didn't question him. The husband grabbed the keys and took the two children into the car and drove off. Because the children were so little, they had no idea that they were going the opposite direction of their grandmother’s house. After thirty minutes, they reached a forest and the father told the children to get out and wait while he goes up ahead to tell the grandmother that she would be expecting them. Without hesitation, the children got out of the car and the father sped off with no intention of coming back.

            The children waited, waited and waited. After hours, the children realized their father would not come to get them. They began to walk through the forest to try and find their way home but since they had been up for so long they became exhausted. They found a small cave and decided to check it out. Once they crawled into the cave, they saw piles of gold, and precious stones as well as two beds made of gold. They decided to fall asleep on the beds. An hour later, a fox and wolf walked into their cave, the same cave the children found, from a late night walk. They decided not to sleep in their beds since the kettles were still warm from earlier.

            Once morning came, the children woke up and saw both the fox and wolf in the kettles and froze. They noticed they were asleep so they quickly got up and covered the kettles and started a fire below them. The animals pleaded for their life but the children continued to burn them until there was no longer noise coming from the kettles. The children then grabbed as many gold and jewels as they could and left the cave in fear that there were more animals that lived in the cave. They found the road from the night before and stuck their thumbs out to try and hitch a ride. The first car to notice them immediately stopped and a woman got out to ask the children why they were alone. Once the children told them their story of their father leaving them, she was so taken back and told the children to come with her. Once she got them in her car, she still couldn’t believe that their father just left them there. Since the woman lived alone, she didn’t think it would be a bad idea to have the children stay with her for a while until she found their parents. 

            The children stayed with the woman for a few days, which then turned into a few weeks to then months. During that time, the woman found the parents but they wanted nothing to do with the children and told the woman to never come back to their house. The woman decided to keep the children to herself and the three grew very close. Once the children felt comfortable enough with the woman, they showed her the jewels and gold that they had hid in their pockets from the cave. The woman was surprised from their finding. The woman was able to buy a bigger house for the children, put them in a good school and even get them a puppy. They lived happy lives while their biological parents still scraped by. 

Hänsel und Gretel by Darstellung von Alexander Zick (1845-1907)

Author's Note: I used the story from the Chinese Fairy Tale Unit called The Cave of the Beast by R. Wilhelm (1921). I kept the story the same but changed it in that they lived in a broken home. I got the idea of children acting out because I was watching Supernanny as I was writing this. Also in the original, the father eventually came back to get the daughters because he felt bad and he took them back along with the gold and jewels. But that ending made me mad because the dad just assumed the daughters would come back to him without being mad and he would get all the riches. So I made it that he didn't want the daughters back and that a single woman would have the pleasure of raising two daughters of her own along with the finding of the riches.