Into the Woods, Children, for Dark Mysteries, Not Simple Lessons

"Inhuman acts are also human in their origin. In the first Grimm version of "Hansel" the witch is simply a "woman as old as the hills - an extreme example of the human, a withered image of who we already are. That story's creepiest element is not the witch's magic but the more mundane spell the father casts in the woods when abandoning his children: attaching a branch to a dead tree so the hollow sound made when it is swung by the wind fools the children into thinking he is still nearby."
[nytimes: arts]