But how surprised were the boy and girl, when they came nearer, to find that the house was built of gingerbread, and ornamented with sweet cakes and tarts, while the window was formed of barley-sugar.  “Oh!” exclaimed Hansel, “let us stop here and have a splendid feast.  I will have a piece from the roof first, Grethel; and you can eat some of the barley-sugar window, it tastes so nice.”  Hansel reached up on tiptoe, and breaking off a piece of the gingerbread, he began to eat with all his might, for he was very hungry.  Grethel seated herself on the doorstep, and began munching away at the cakes of which it was made.  Presently a voice came out of the cottage: 

  “Munching, crunching, munching,
   Who’s eating up my house?”

Then answered the children: 

    “The wind, the wind,
     Only the wind,”

and went on eating as if they never meant to leave off, without a suspicion of wrong.  Hansel, who found the cake on the roof taste very good, broke off another large piece, and Grethel had just taken out a whole pane of barley-sugar from the window, and seated herself to eat it, when the door opened, and a strange-looking old woman came out leaning on a stick.

Hansel and Grethel were so frightened that they let fall what they held in their hands.  The old woman shook her head at them, and said, “Ah, you dear children, who has brought you here?  Come in, and stay with me for a little while, and there shall no harm happen to you.”  She seized them both by the hands as she spoke, and led them into the house.  She gave them for supper plenty to eat and drink—­milk and pancakes and sugar, apples and nuts; and when evening came, Hansel and Grethel were shown two beautiful little beds with white curtains, and they lay down in them and thought they were in heaven.

But although the old woman pretended to be friendly, she was a wicked witch, who had her house built of gingerbread on purpose to entrap children.  When once they were in her power, she would feed them well till they got fat, and then kill them and cook them for her dinner; and this she called her feast-day.  Fortunately the witch had weak eyes, and could not see very well; but she had a very keen scent, as wild animals have, and could easily discover when human beings were near.  As Hansel and Grethel had approached her cottage, she laughed to herself maliciously, and said, with a sneer:  “I have them now; they shall not escape from me again!”

Early in the morning, before the children were awake, she was up, standing by their beds; and when she saw how beautiful they looked in their sleep, with their round rosy cheeks, she muttered to herself, “What nice tit-bits they will be!” Then she laid hold of Hansel with her rough hand, dragged him out of bed, and led him to a little cage which had a lattice-door, and shut him in; he might scream as much as he would, but it was all useless.

After this she went back to Grethel, and, shaking her roughly till she woke, cried:  “Get up, you lazy hussy, and draw some water, that I may boil something good for your brother, who is shut up in a cage outside till he gets fat; and then I shall cook him and eat him!” When Grethel heard this she began to cry bitterly; but it was all useless, she was obliged to do as the wicked witch told her.