"Only Little Red-Cap, bringing you some meat and wine; please open the
door," answered the Wolf. "Lift up the latch," cried the grandmother; "I
am much too ill to get up myself."
So the Wolf lifted the latch, and the door flew open; and without a
word, he jumped on to the bed, and gobbled up the poor old lady. Then he
put on her clothes, and tied her night-cap over his head; got into the
bed, and drew the blankets over him. All this time Red-Cap was gathering
flowers; and when she had picked as many as she could carry, she thought
of her grandmother, and hurried to the cottage. She wondered greatly to
find the door open; and when she got into the room, she began to feel
very ill, and exclaimed, "How sad I feel! I wish I had not come to-day."
Then she said, "Good morning," but received no reply; so she went up to
the bed, and drew back the curtains, and there lay her grandmother, as
she imagined, with the cap drawn half over her eyes, and looking very
fierce.
"Oh, grandmother, what great ears you have!" she said.
"All the better to hear you with," was the reply.
"And what great eyes you have!"
"All the better to see you with."
"And what great hands you have!"
"All the better to touch you with."
"But, grandmother, what very great teeth you have!"
"All the better to eat you with;" and hardly were the words spoken when
the Wolf made a jump out of bed, and swallowed up poor Little Red-Cap
also.
As soon as the Wolf had thus satisfied his hunger, he laid himself down
again on the bed, and went to sleep and snored very loudly. A huntsman
passing by overheard him, and said, "How loudly that old woman snores! I
must see if anything is the matter."
So he went into the cottage; and when he came to the bed, he saw the
Wolf sleeping in it. "What! are you here, you old rascal? I have been
looking for you," exclaimed he; and taking up his gun, he shot the old
Wolf through the head.
But it is also said that the story ends in a different manner; for that
one day, when Red-Cap was taking some presents to her grandmother, a
Wolf met her, and wanted to mislead her; but she went straight on, and
told her grandmother that she had met a Wolf, who said good day, and who
looked so hungrily out of his great eyes, as if he would have eaten her
up had she not been on the high-road.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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