Hansel and Gretel

On Thursday I bought a new German stamp set.

Hansel and Gretel (issued 06-02-2014)

Hansel and Gretel are the the children of a poor tree feller. They live together with their step mother (in a earlier version with their mother) in the wood. One day the poverty becomes too abject, so the step mother wants that the father abandons Hansel and Gretel in the wood. So he does but Hansel eavesdrops on their conversation and spreads small stones on their way so that they are able to find the way back home. The father retries to abandon them and this time Hansel is not able to take small stones along but a slice of bread. He spreads the breadcrumbs on the way but as they want to go back the birds had eaten them. So they get lost.

A third day they find a house consisting of bread, cake and sugar. They break something off to allay their hunger. In this house lives a anthropophagic witch. The witch hears that someone nibbles her house and says "Nibble, nibble, gnaw, Who is nibbling at my little house?" and the children answer "The wind, the wind, the heaven-born wind!". But she does not let herself be fooled.

She catches Hansel and Gretel. Gretel becomes her skivvy and Hansel is tucked by her in a cage so that she can fatten him and eat him later. Every day as she is nearly blind she feels his finger to see if he becomes fatter but the smart Hansel gives her a small bone to fool her. As she thinks he do not become fatter she loses her temper and want to roast him immediately. She wants that Gretel feel if the oven is hot enough but Gretel says that she is to small to look in the oven. So the witch has to do it herself and as her head is in the oven Gretel pushes her into it. Then she frees her brother.

As they did not find the way back home they came to body of water on which is a duck caring them home.

I bought also a First Day Cover.