By morning, the boy is thirsty, so the children go looking for a spring of clear water. Tired of the cruel mistreatment they endure from their wicked stepmother, who is also a witch, a brother and sister run away from home, wander off into the countryside, and spend the night in the woods. Researcher Julian Krzyzanowski suggested that a 1558 Latin language booklet by a Polish author, Christopher Kobylienski, contains a literary treatment of the tale type, about a pair of siblings, the boy becoming a lamb from drinking from "dangerous waters" and the sister marrying a king. Some publications of the Hansel and Gretel tale still use the Little Brother and Little Sister title, causing confusion for readers. The Grimms selected Hansel and Gretel for the tale by that name and kept the Brother and Sister title for this tale. Īt times, Brother and Sister has been confused with Hansel and Gretel, which has also been known under the alternate title of Little Brother and Little Sister. Their version is based on the account of the German storyteller Marie Hassenpflug (1788–1856). Ī shorter version of the tale was published by the Brothers Grimm in the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen in 1812, then substantially expanded and revised in the second edition (1819).
In Russia the story was more commonly known as Sister Alionushka, Brother Ivanushka, and collected by Alexander Afanasyev in his Narodnye russkie skazki. Since then it has circulated in a number of European countries under varying titles but with most of the main story intact. It was written down as the tale of Ninnillo and Nennella. The first recorded appearance of Brother and Sister is in Giambattista Basile's Pentamerone around the 17th century.