Gingerbread house
In short: The witch’s edible trap for hungry children in Hansel and Gretel.
Object
How does it work in the tale?
This translation of Grimm describes a bread house with a cake roof and sugar windows. The children start eating before they learn who lives inside. The apparent answer to their hunger leads them into danger.
What parts of the Grimms’ house can be eaten?
In the 1857 text the house is made of bread, the roof of cake and the windows of sugar. Hansel takes a piece of the roof and Gretel goes to a window. Bread, which was meant to mark the way earlier, now helps draw the hungry children to the house. Notice which part each child reaches for.