These things don’t get written overnight.

And while I take notes (and I have lots and lots of notes) it’s helpful to flip through artwork, even if it’s from 500-odd years after someone originally dreamed up the story.  This painting (from Wikimedia Commons) is by Alexander Zick (1845 – 1907). 

The thing about Hansel & Gretel, the bit that we don’t really know anymore, is that the story comes to us from a time of widespread famine in Europe.  There was a local shift in the climate, and it rained on the whole damned continent for all of 1315-1317.  This was WAY worse than Noah.  Although, to be sure, it was biblical in scale.

To make a long story short, people starved. Everywhere.  And there was — possibly — cannibalism in Europe. 

Suddenly, the story of Hansel & Gretel makes sense.

I learned about this at an art history lecture a couple of winters ago, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art..  Having heard those words for the first time — cannibalism in Europe — I knew what my next story was going to be.  And everything else about the lecture was wiped from my memory.  Really.  I can’t remember a single detail.

But that’s okay.  I know where I’m going with this.  Check in with me from time to time.