Once upon a time
there dwelt near a large wood a poor wood cutter, with his wife, and two
children by his former marriage, a little boy called Hansel, and a girl named
Grethel. He had little enough to break or bite; and once, when there was a
great famine in the land, he could hardly procure even his daily bread; and as
he lay thinking in his bed one night, he sighed, and said to his wife, “What
will become of us? How can we feed our children, when we have no more than we
can eat ourselves?”
