Hansel and Gretel

We are transported back to the little Dutch cottage in the woods and see little Hansel and Gretel and their parents, and we feel their hunger and are glad when their father starts out with the load of brooms, which they have just finished, to make some sales; and when we see the borrowed milk, which is to relieve their hunger until he returns, spilled on the floor and the children driven to the woods after berries, we know that fairies cannot be very far away and that something is going to happen. Soon we see the children wandering in the woods and beginning to be frightened as it grows late and strange, uncanny faces laugh at them from behind tree trunks and the rocks. We see them meet the sandman, who puts them to sleep and laughingly goes on his way, and then we are privileged to be the only ones who see what happens while they sleep. Suddenly the woods beyond them grow light with strange radiance and shining angels with their harps look down upon them and guard their slumbers; and...