Oven Witch in Pedroso’s Children’s Tales

Overview

In the main account, a brother and sister follow their absent mother’s scattered bean shells and reach an old woman frying cakes. She is blind in one eye, allowing them to steal food unnoticed until the girl laughs. Calling them her grandchildren, the woman confines them in a chestnut-filled box and examines their fingers to judge their condition. They substitute a cat’s tail on a later examination.

A fairy met while gathering fuel reveals the woman’s intention to bake them and supplies the means of reversing her deception. Asked to demonstrate how they should sit on the baker’s peel, the witch does so; the children send her into the oven and survive. Her affectionate forms of address do not establish actual kinship.

The appended variant uses three brothers stealing cakes from the roof with a long hook. No guiding fairy appears. These brothers are consecrated to Saint Peter and call on him after persuading the witch to mount the peel; he pushes her into the oven and shuts it. The edition presents this as another version, rather than a further encounter undergone by the first pair of children.

Origins & earliest records

Consiglieri Pedroso, Portuguese Folk-Tales, translated from the original manuscript by Henriqueta Monteiro, London: Elliot Stock for the Folk-Lore Society, 1882; tale XIV, pp. 59–62. The selected account does not identify an individual narrator or collecting locality.

Records & interpretation

The located 1882 English translation presents this figure within a complete collected narrative. Pedroso’s introductory pp. 1–2 describe the thirty published selections from his larger collection.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Portuguese Folk-Tales XIV: The Two Children and the Witch, main account and appended variant, pp. 59–62

   Collected by Consiglieri Pedroso; translated by Henriqueta Monteiro · 1882

   Located complete narrative in the original London edition; Ralston’s comparative introduction is separate commentary.

Family & connections

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References

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1. Primary textPortuguese Folk-Tales, original 1882 edition scan and transcriptionResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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