| “ | When it was mid-day, they saw a beautiful snow-white bird sitting on a bough, which sang so delightfully that they stood still and listened to it. And when it had finished its song, it spread its wings and flew away before them, and they followed it until they reached a little house, on the roof of which it alighted; and when they came quite up to little house they saw that it was built of bread and covered with cakes, but that the windows were of clear sugar. | „ |
| ~ A narrative description of the Ginderbread House. |
The Gingerbread House is home to The Witch from the classical 19th century Germanic fairytale Hansel & Gretel.
History
As the name implies, the unnamed witch’s Gingerbread House is small house that is made of cookie dough, cut and baked into appropriate components like walls and roofing as with its mundane counterparts. Its’ solid parts are made of ginger biscuits and bread while its windows from transparent sugar block that they can be mistaken as a glass on a first glance, and a variety of candies and icing covering the walls.
While edible, the house appeared to be bewitched so it can be resistant to elements like mundane houses do along with other forms of maintenance. The house’s edibility, coupled with its charm and the sweet aroma that can be smelled from a considerable distance, enable its sinister owner to lure lost lost and/or abandoned children for her to eat.
The house also has a cages and/or stables in which the cannibalistic witch locked children like a cattle along with a room in full of treasure, presumably hoarded from some rich children she consumed prior to Hansel and Gretel’s arrival.
In some versions of the story, the house was originally a cottage transfigured into a Gingerbeard House Hansel and Gretel stumbled into, as sometime after its owner’s death, the house reverted to its’ true appearance.
In Popular Culture
- The Gingerbeard House becomes a staple to various evil lairs and other similar locations due to the popularity of Hansel and Gretel story. In fact, TV Tropes.org has a trope dedicated to this storybook evil lair. The Gingerbread house was very famous as it appeared in some stories, some TV shows for children like Little Einstein or Suite Life on Deck and for some horror movies.
- In Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, a gingerbread house serves as silent witness of both the titular siblings’ first witch kill (the house’s owner) and final confrontation against the evil ruling witch Muriel.