Throughout time, people have used folk tales, fairy tales, fantasy,
             myth, and other types stories to make sense of the world around them. For
             generations these tales were passed along orally, changed according to the
             imagination, memory, or teaching needs of the current storyteller.
             Eventually, many of these tales were catalogued, recorded, and written
             down, permanently setting down for all time the tales that have influenced
             children, and adults, for generations. As Datlow and Windling note, "fairy
             tales speak in a deceptively simple, [yet] richly archetypal language,
             [and] their symbols have proven to be [] potent" and are still being reused
             and retold by modern writers (Datlow and Windling 2). This paper will
             examine the fairytale, "Hansel and Gretel," a tale of two children
             abandoned in a wood who are able to make it home only after several
             terrifying experiences, discussing its history and how it has influenced
             the way characters are portrayed in horror and dark fantasy tales.
             It is generally acknowledged that the popularity of cataloguing and
             recording fairytales first occurred during the seventeenth century in
             France, "where Charles Perrault created a genre and set down in writing a
             refined version of simple popular tales which, up to then, had been
             transmitted by word of mouth" (Calvino xv). This genre became popular
             again in the nineteenth century with the publication of the Children's and
             Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm (Zipes xxix). While earlier tales
             that have a close resemblance to "Hansel and Gretel" appear in some of the
             Perrault tales, and the story is similar to many children and ogre-type
             tales known throughout Europe for many centuries, the actual tale itself
             first appears in the Grimm collection. The fact that this was a common-type
             of tale, especially among those living in or around the vast European
             forests during the often desperate time...