Hansel went about his business picking up twigs. He, however, kept listening in and eventually heard the tree begin to fall. It sounded very close and Hansel wanted to see it collapse. He turned to see a giant tree trunk only a few inches above his head.

I guess someone should have shouted timber, maybe they didn't intentionally. Gretel would wake later in the evening to find her parents gone, her brother crushed, and would eventually go running terrified into the woods, where she would stumble into a river and sink below the water.