

One of my favourite fairytales is the story of ‘Hansel and Gretel’ recounted by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, with two variations in the tale published in the 1812 and 1857 versions to accomodate a wider selection of similar folktales. From the fairytale and folklore indexes developed by Professor Ashlimanm , the ATU system identified at least ten variants in many countries following similar themes.
The most commonly known version of ‘Hansel and Gretel’ is a tale set during a bitter winter, and poor parents forced to choose between their personal survival and the cost of raising a girl and boy without resources. On the brink of starvation, the children are taken into the woods and abandoned. When they find the cottage where a witch lives, she offers them their desires (mostly food). When the danger of the bargain is revealed, Hansel and Gretel use a trail of breadcrumbs to follow their way back to their village and escape the witch.
In my own reimagining, I thought of the gothic folklore surrounding the Forest, a common themes in many fairytales. The only reason the Forest might be entered willingly would be if the danger outside the Forest was worse than the unknown terrors of the Forest. To reimagine another time when similar conditions in Hesse-Cassel existed, I used s more modern setting such as WWII. Here, Hansel and Gretel equivalents must escape the dangerous of the Forest and it’s haunting presence of a witch. I wanted to create that same dark threat of the witch and her malevolence towards children, choosing corpselights, often thought the souls of murdered or unrestful child spirits, to provide a safe path for the children to follow and escape the Forest.
[…] New Tales of Old Volume 1 includes my dark reimagining of Hansel and Gretel, “A Trail of Corpselights” set during World War Two Germany, and “The Dark Harpist” a dark fantasy inspired by the Pied Piper and the Singing Bone fairytales. You can read more about my research behind “The Dark Harpist” here and “A Trail of Corpselights” here. […]
[…] “A Trail of Corpselights” inspired by Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, (you can read more here ) and “The Dark Harpist” a dark fantasy reimagining of the Pied Piper fairy tale, (more details […]
[…] Pleased to announce I will be joining a wonderful lineup of authors for New Tales of Old, Volume 1 to be published in 2021 by Raven and Drake Publishing! All stories and flash fiction in this anthology were inspired by the retelling and reimagining of fairytales. My story “A Trail of Corpselights” is inspired by gothic folklore of forests and the folklore behind corpselights, also known as Will o’wisps. You can read more here. […]