PART ONE: Getting Lost, Being Found

This is HUGE! For the month of DECEMBER the LOST IN THE RABBIT HOLE podcast will be a TWO PARTER!

Join me as I delve into the variant tales of abandoned children. Hansel and Gretel are only a part of this story.

We begin: "Long, long ago, beside one such Winter forest there lived a poor woodcutter with his wife and their two children – a little boy and a little girl. They lived humbly in a house made of wattle and daub, all snug together under their thatch roof. There was a little coop around back for the chickens, and the woodcutter’s wife kept a vegetable garden full of lush, ripe tomatoes in the summer and squash in the fall. The house was perfectly placed between two aspen sentries, each guarding a side."

Come along down the sugared path and I promise, no one will bite.
PART TWO is available immediately.

Versions Referenced in this episode:

"Little Brother and Little Sister" aka "Hansel and Gretel" (Germany, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, 1812-1840)"Ninnillo and Nennella" (Italy, Giambattista Basile, 1635) also here"Little Thumb" aka "Hop on my Thumb" (France, Charles Perrault, 1697)"Jan and Hanna" (Poland, author unknown, 1863)"Finette Cedron" aka Cunning Cinders, (France, Marie-Catherine D'Aulnoy, 1967)"Little Earth Cow" (Alsace, Martin Montanus, 1557)

Reference Materials

The Golden Age of Folk and Fairy Tales: From the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang  by Jack Zipes
The Classic Fairytales, Iona and Peter Opie
The Third Horseman A STORY OF WEATHER, WAR, AND THE FAMINE HISTORY FORGOT By William Rosen