The Child as a Hero

Usually when one thinks of the hero of a story, they think of the heroic prince rescuing the princess from impending doom. One usually doesn't think a child: pure, innocent and untouched by reality could take on the form of a hero. However stories such as Hansel and Gretel and Little Thumbling prove that a child could be just as much of a hero as an ethereal prince from a fairy tale.
In Hansel and Gretel the two children are deserted in the woods by their parents due to lack of food. Hansel's wit leads them back to their home but only works once and again they are stranded in the middle of a forest. As the meander around the unknown woods they come upon a house that is made of bread. The children begin to nibble on the house and they come to find that a witch lives there and uses her house made of food to lure children in. She plans to eat the children and locks Hansel in a barn and forces Gretel to cook food to fatten him up. The witch has poor eyesight and Hansel uses this to his advantage to trick her. Instead of sticking his own finger out of the barn when they witch comes to see if he is getting fatter, he sticks out a bone. The witch is confused as to why Hansel isn't gaining any weight. She tells Gretel that she is preparing to eat him anyway. As she tells Gretel to turn the stove on and climb in to see if the bread will fit. Gretel uses the wit she has as well to fool the witch into leaning down enough so she can be pushed into the oven. Gretel runs to let Hansel out and tells him of the witch's demise. They take many jewels that the witch had back to their home where they find that their mother has died and they live happily ever after with their father.
Little Thumbling has much of the same premise as Hansel and Gretel. As the youngest and smallest of seven children, Little Thumbling's family was struggling to survive. The parents took the children and left them in the woods. Little Thumbling consoled his weeping brothers and told them that he could lead them back to the house because he dropped pebbles along the pathway. This only worked once because the very next day, they were abandoned in the woods once again. They wandered about until they came upon a house. The house held an evil ogre that prepared to eat the children. However, Little Thumbling took notice of the ogre's daughters and the golden crowns they had placed upon their heads. He switched his brothers hats for the golden crowns so when the ogre came to slay the boys he mistook his daughters for them. This allowed the children to slip away. The ogre, in a fit of rage, came after the boys but fell asleep from being so tired. Little Thumbling took the seven-league boots off of the ogres feet and traveled quickly back to the house and told a lie to the ogres wife so that she would hand over all of the jewels and treasures the ogre had acquired over the years. She did so and Little Thumbling returned to his father's house.
Instead of the heroic feats you associate with princes that rescue princesses from the villains lair we are told the story of child who uses the only weapon they possess: their wit. They are not equipped with swords or bows and arrows, all they have is their brains. "The child views existential dangers not objectively, but fantastically exaggerated in line with his immature dread...'Hansel and Gretel' encourages the child to explore on his own even the figments of his anxious imagination, because such fairy tales give him confidence that he can master not only the real dangers which his parents told him about, but even those vastly exaggerated ones which he fears exist" (Bettelheim 166). Both of these stories involve children who can no longer rely on their parents for help and must depend on each other (whether it be your sibling or even the support of "age mates") to survive. The children can no longer survive with their mothers (Hansel and Gretel show their need for their motherly survival through eating the house).