The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids

Once upon a time there was an old goat who had seven little kids, and she loved them the way every mother loves her children. One day she needed to go into the forest to find food, so she called all seven of them to her side and said, "Dear children, I must go out for a while. Be on your guard against the wolf. If he gets in, he will gobble you right up. He's a sly one, and he often dresses up his voice to sound kind, but you'll always know him by his rough, growly voice and his black feet." The little kids said, "Don't worry, dear mother. We'll take good care of ourselves." So the old goat gave a gentle bleat goodbye and went on her way with an easy heart.

It wasn't long before someone knocked at the door and called out, "Open up, dear children! Your mother is home, and she's brought something back for each of you." But the little kids knew that rough voice at once. "We won't open the door," they cried. "Our mother's voice is soft and sweet, but yours is rough. You're the wolf!"

So off went the wolf to a shopkeeper and bought himself a great lump of chalk, and he ate it to make his voice soft. Then he came back, knocked at the door, and called out again, just as before. But he had rested his paw on the windowsill, and the children spotted it at once. "We won't open the door," they cried. "Our mother's foot isn't black like yours. You're the wolf!"

So the wolf hurried off to a baker and said, "I've hurt my paw — spread some dough over it for me." Then he ran to a miller and said, "Sprinkle white flour over my paw." The miller thought to himself, "That wolf is up to no good," and at first he refused — but the wolf growled that he'd eat him up if he didn't, and the frightened miller gave in and made the wolf's paw white.

Now the wicked creature went to the door a third time, knocked, and said, "Open up, children! Your own dear mother is home, and she's brought you something from the forest." The little kids said, "First show us your paw, so we know it's really you." He set his paw on the sill, and when they saw it was white, they believed every word, and they opened the door.

But it was the wolf who stepped inside! The little kids were terrified and scattered to hide. One dove under the table, one leaped into the bed, one squeezed into the stove, one ran to the kitchen, one hid in the cupboard, one crouched under the washing bowl, and the smallest and youngest scrambled into the case of the old wall clock. But the wolf hunted through the house and found six of them, one after another, and swallowed each one whole. Only the littlest, tucked away in the clock case, he never found. When he had eaten his fill, the wolf ambled outside, lay down under a tree in the green meadow, and fell fast asleep.

Before long, the old goat came home from the forest, and oh, what a sight met her! The door stood wide open, the furniture was knocked about, the washing bowl lay broken, and the bedclothes were pulled every which way. She called for her children, one by one, but no one answered — until she came to the very last name, and a small voice called back, "Dear mother, I'm here, in the clock case!" She lifted the littlest kid out, and through her tears he told her everything: the wolf had come, and eaten all the others.

You can imagine how the poor mother wept. At last, in her grief, she went outside, and the littlest kid trotted along beside her. When they reached the meadow, there lay the wolf under the tree, snoring so loudly the branches shook. She looked him over carefully — and there, in his round belly, she saw something stirring and shifting. "Could it be," she thought, her heart leaping, "that my poor children are still alive inside him?"

She sent the little kid running home for scissors, a needle, and thread. Then, ever so carefully, she snipped open the wolf's belly. She had barely made the first cut when a little kid's head popped out, and as she kept snipping, all six sprang out, one after the other — every one of them alive and unharmed, for the greedy wolf had swallowed them down whole without so much as a bite. What joy there was! They hugged their dear mother and hopped and skipped about with happiness.

But their mother said, "Now, quickly — go and gather big stones, while the wicked creature is still asleep." So the seven little kids hurried back and forth, and together they packed the wolf's belly full of heavy stones. Then their mother sewed him up again so neatly and so fast that he never felt a thing and never even stirred.

When the wolf finally woke from his long sleep, he felt terribly thirsty from all those stones inside him, so he got up to find a well. But every time he moved, the stones knocked and rattled together, and he cried out in surprise:

"What rumbles and tumbles and rolls down below? I thought it was six kids — but it's stones, heigh-ho!"

When he reached the well and leaned over the water to drink, the stones were so heavy that they pulled him right in, and there was no help for him — he sank beneath the water and drowned.

When the seven little kids saw what had happened, they came running, calling out, "The wolf is dead! The wolf is dead!" And they danced for joy around the well with their dear mother, all of them safe again at last.