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

Chapters

• 0:06 Intro
• 1:59 Episode 3 Begins: Why Two Parts
• 3:07 Once upon a time
• 7:41 The Woodcutter and His Wife
• 9:39 A Little Bit of Background: Women are Witches
• 11:23 Pebbles
• 16:14 A Little Bit of Background: Child Abandonment
• 18:21 Jan and Hanna
• 20:33 A Little Bit of Background: Cannibalism
• 21:54 Little Brother and Little Sister
• 23:33 End of PART ONE: Episode Three
• 23:59 Outro