Lots of deception in this story – of the parents to the children, of Hansel to his parents, between the Witch and Gretel.  Perhaps this is a reflection of the desperate times in which they live.  The gingerbread house is itself a multilayered deception – food that is not nutritious nor for their benefit, a hostess who lures guests in order to consume them; and yet they’re able to outwit the witch and solve the original problem.  There may be echoes of Theseus and the Minotaur here, and that may explain the ease of the denouement. Also notice the “magical logic,” where once the kids solve the original problem – parasitism in the land and resulting poverty – other seemingly unconnected problems – here, the conniving stepmother – disappear.  There may also be “folk logic,” where the problem of poverty in the land is given a moral and supernatural element – the hyper rational stepmother perhaps, and especially the dragon deep in the woods: the waylaying witch – and after the desperate hero slays that dragon, the land returns to prosperity.  There may be echoes here of primitive peoples’ belief in connections between general moral health and responses of the gods in terms of rain, crop success, etc. 

(Sorry about the bad sound on my end.  It’s been corrected in future episodes.)

Please comment, like, and subscribe!

For the full episode:

https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-v6szz-1870008

For more in this podcast, please go to:

Podbean:

https://benomtad.podbean.com

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863

YouTube: 

https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ

I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

H & G loot the witch’s house, which is filled with treasures taken from a long series of victims.  They reach a river and cross it with the help of a white duck.  There is also singing here (like with the white bird before).  They make their way home this time… Dad is overjoyed; stepmom has passed.  Poverty and stepparent problems solved.  

(Sorry about the bad sound on my end.  It’s been corrected in future episodes.)

Please comment, like, and subscribe!

For the full episode:

https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-v6szz-1870008

For more in this podcast, please go to:

Podbean:

https://benomtad.podbean.com

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863

YouTube: 

https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ

I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

H & G begin to eat the house, telling an inquiring voice from within that it’s merely the wind.  The hag comes out and invites them inside.  She forces Gretel to be her servant, helping the lady fatten up her brother.  Witches have dim eyes and so they use a chicken bone to fool her into thinking the boy isn’t gaining weight.  When the witch tries to cash in on her investment Gretel senses her intent and counter-tricks her into the oven.  Gretel then rescues her brother.

(Sorry about the bad sound on my end.  It’s been corrected in future episodes.)

Please comment, like, and subscribe!

For the full episode:

https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-v6szz-1870008

For more in this podcast, please go to:

Podbean:

https://benomtad.podbean.com

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863

YouTube: 

https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ

I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Time passes, and there is little food again for the family, and the kids again overhear the nocturnal calculations.  This time, the door is locked, so Hansel can’t retrieve his stones.  He instead uses breadcrumbs as they are taken deeper into the forest.  Waiting for the moonlight to light the way, they are dismayed, for the birds have eaten their trail. As they try to make their way back they become more lost in the forest.  Starving, they are guided by a snow white bird to a gingerbread house.  

(Sorry about the bad sound on my end.  It’s been corrected in future episodes.)

Please comment, like, and subscribe!

For the full episode:

https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-v6szz-1870008

For more in this podcast, please go to:

Podbean:

https://benomtad.podbean.com

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863

YouTube: 

https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ

I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

As the family leaves home, Hansel drops pebbles, lying to his stepmother to cover what he’s doing.  In the forest, they build a fire and the parents leave the kids, tricking the kids with a twig tied to a tree.  They are able to make their way home and the father is happy and relieved.  

(Sorry about the bad sound on my end.  It’s been corrected in future episodes.)

Please comment, like, and subscribe!

For the full episode:

https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-v6szz-1870008

For more in this podcast, please go to:

Podbean:

https://benomtad.podbean.com

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863

YouTube: 

https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ

I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

H & G overhear their stepmother planning their abandonment and persuading their father with reason. The older brother reassures his younger sister and prepares, gathering pebbles.  

(Sorry about the bad sound on my end.  It’s been corrected in future episodes.)

Please comment, like, and subscribe!

For the full episode:

https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-v6szz-1870008

For more in this podcast, please go to:

Podbean:

https://benomtad.podbean.com

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863

YouTube: 

https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ

I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Hansel and Gretel are children who must outwit adults and save their little family.  They live in a “time of great scarcity” and are abandoned by their parents, who fear the whole family will starve.  They find their way deep in the woods to a magical bread house which is an evil witch who means to make them her means of sustenance.  Listen for our summary and analysis of this tale which involves role reversals, symbolic killing, birds as ferriers, calculation vs. faith, and of course good versus evil! 

(Sorry about the bad sound on my end.  It’s been corrected in future episodes.)

Please comment, like, and subscribe!

For the previous episode:

https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-py3np-186a16b

For more in this podcast, please go to:

Podbean:

https://benomtad.podbean.com

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863

YouTube: 

https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ

I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

There doesn’t seem to be justice in this story.  A century passes and things pass by.  Finally, after the world has forgotten, someone comes by and is a catalyst for it all to just restart where it left off in the frozen kingdom.

(Sorry about the bad sound on my end.  It’s been corrected in future episodes.)

Please comment, like, and subscribe!

For the full episode:

https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-py3np-186a16b

For more in this podcast, please go to:

Podbean:

https://benomtad.podbean.com

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863

YouTube: 

https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ

I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Perhaps there is inevitability in the 13th Wise Woman’s Offense and Curse.  She may symbolize the pervasive chance accident set in life always, especially jarring when you get what you want in life.  Then we talk about the eerie pervasive century-long slumber of the kingdom, and LL notices the tone of something unresolved about the story.

(Sorry about the bad sound on my end.  It’s been corrected in future episodes.)

Please comment, like, and subscribe!

For the full episode:

https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-py3np-186a16b

For more in this podcast, please go to:

Podbean:

https://benomtad.podbean.com

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863

YouTube: 

https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ

I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

The Brothers Grimm’s “The Sleeping Beauty (Briar Rose):” 13 & For the Powerful, Small Actions have Enormous Ramifications (Clip)

Lack of Preparation, Impropriety and Depression. Why doesn’t the king have a 13th plate for his Wise Women guests?  Is this an oversight on his part?  Anyway, it seems that this is the thing that the whole story turns on.  Often in stories a slight against a powerful personage results in disaster.  But keeping in mind the etymology of the word “disaster,” perhaps this is all how it was meant to happen.  Perhaps there even needed to be a curse for the kingdom to balance out the blessing of the child.  Either way, it seems that here, for the powerful, small actions have huge ramifications.  

(Sorry about the bad sound on my end.  It’s been corrected in future episodes.)

Please comment, like, and subscribe!

For the full episode:

https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-py3np-186a16b

For more in this podcast, please go to:

Podbean:

https://benomtad.podbean.com

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863

YouTube: 

https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ

I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.