In the widely known version of Hansel and
Gretel, we read of two little children who become lost in the
forest, eventually finding their way to a gingerbread house which
belongs to a wicked witch. The children end up enslaved for a time
as the witch prepares them for eating. They figure their way out and
throw the witch in a fire and escape.
In an earlier French version of this tale (called The Lost
Children), instead of a witch we have a devil. Now the wicked old
devil is tricked by the children (in much the same way as Hansel and
Gretel) but he works it out and puts together a sawhorse to put one
of the children on to bleed (that isn’t an error – he really does).
The children pretend not to know how to get on the sawhorse so the
devil’s wife demonstrates. While she is lying down the kids slash
her throat and escape.