Witches witches
Hexen hexen (orig. The Witches ) is a 1983 children's book by the English writer Roald Dahl . The German edition was published in 1986 in the only translation by Sybil Gräfin Schönfeldt to date .
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The book tells the story of a boy who lives with his grandmother in Norway from the perspective of a first-person narrator . She tells him about “real witches ” who are very different from fairy tales : real witches have no hair, no toes, have claws instead of fingernails, large nostrils and blue spit. The really scary thing about witches is that they can look like normal women.
Witches hate children and their purpose in life is to ambush them and enchant them. The grandmother tells of children who disappeared and were even turned by witches. She explains how you can recognize a witch and how you can protect yourself from her. So you have to z. For example, to protect yourself from a witch's sense of smell, be dirty, or look a suspicious woman in the eye and the pupil color changes regularly.
When his parents die, the two move to England . While he is building a tree house, a woman tries to get him to come to her so she can give him a snake . But he stays away from her until she disappears. The woman was a witch and he followed the warnings.
One day they go on vacation to a hotel because their grandmother has pneumonia. The boy wants to teach his white mice tricks and hides in the hotel's ballroom. Shortly afterwards, the KGVK (Royal Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse), which consists of hundreds of women. Hiding behind a screen, he sees that women are really witches and that society is only a cover. He has turned up in the middle of a witches' congress and he sees the high and grand master witch. She announces the plan to turn all children of England into mice with a magic potion, so that they would then unwittingly be slain by their teachers as vermin.
Soon afterwards the witches disguise themselves again to let in little Bruno. The Grand Master Witch lured him with the promise of chocolate to demonstrate the effects of her magic potion. Before the eyes of all witches, Bruno is successfully transformed into a mouse. When the first-person narrator tries to escape, he is discovered and also turned into a mouse. Fortunately, his voice and character have been preserved, as is the case with Bruno. Together, the two manage to get to the grandmother. All three want to prevent the other children of England from suffering the same fate. The boy and his grandmother hatch a plan: The grandmother lets the boy down from her balcony wearing a knitted stocking into the high and grand master witch's room, which is just below hers, in order to steal the magic potion, which also succeeds. Then the boy cheats his way into the hotel kitchen with the magic potion and uses it to displace the witches' dinner. All witches (including their leader) are turned into mice and killed by the hotel staff. The children of England are saved. Bruno remains a mouse and returns to his family as such.
The boy moves back to Norway with his grandmother, where the two of them come up with a new plan: They want to make the mouse maker themselves, travel from country to country in order to finally free the world from the entire witch society.
Film adaptations
The book was first filmed in 1990 by Nicolas Roeg . The great head witch was played by Anjelica Huston and Rowan Atkinson played the hotel owner Mr. Stringer. Jim Henson Productions helped portray the mice. A remake by Robert Zemeckis is announced for 2020.
literature
expenditure
- The Witches (1983) ISBN 0-374-38457-6
- Witches witches - the book for the film , rororo Rotfuchs (1986) ISBN 3499205874
- Witches witches , children's book publisher Berlin (1988)
- Hexen hexen , Rowohlt paperback new edition (2002) ISBN 3499212102
- Witches witches , reading with Ulrich Noethen (2007) ISBN 978-3-89940-705-1