Grimm Rewritten: Retellings of the Original Grimm Stories

The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids

   There once was an old goat who gave birth to seven little kids. She loved them each the same. Two were brown, two were black, two gray, and one was white.
   One day the goat was going to go off into the forest to fetch some food. She came to her children and said, "I'm heading for the woods to find some food. I want you all on your best guard against that big, bad wolf. For if he catches you, he will devour you- skin, hair, and all. He often disguises himself, but you will recognize him by his rough, scratchy voice and his black feet."

"Don't you fret, dear mother," the seven replied. "We will take care of ourselves." The old goat smiled and went on her way.

   It was but a short while before a knock was heard at the door. The voice called out, "Open the door, my dearests. Your mother is here and I've brought a gift back for each of you."

   The seven goats did not fall for this trickery and knew that it was the wolf by his rough voice. "We will not open the door for you, beast! Our mother's voice is soft and pleasing, but yours is rough as the sand under our feet."

   Then the wolf grumpily went away to a shopkeeper and bought for himself a big lump of white chalk. He chewed it up and swallowed it, and his voice was made soft.

   He returned to the house, once again knocked, and called out,"Open up, my kids, your mother is here and has brought you a gift." But the wolf had laid his black paws against the window and the children saw them.

"We will not open this door," they said. "For you are the wolf. Are mother does not have black feet like yours."

   The wolf went away again in despair. This time he went to a baker and asked him to rub some dough on his feet. Once the baker had done so, the wolf went to mill and asked the miller to spread some white meal onto his feet, and the miller did so.

   So now the beast, for the third time, knocked, and said, "My dear kids, your mother is here and has brought a gift for each of you."

   The kids asked to see his paws, and he put them up to the window. When the kids saw that they were white, they let him in. But once they saw it was the wolf, they were terrified and hid and tables and chairs. The wolf found them all and swallowed each, one by one. The youngest, who had hid in the clock-case, was the only one the wolf could not find.

   When the wolf had become satisfied, he left and found a spot under a tree in which he fell asleep.

   Soon afterwards, the old goat came home. The door stood open, the tables and chairs were broken on the floor. She called for her children, but they were nowhere to be found. She called them one by one, and when she got to the name of the last one, he came out crying.
 
   The little goat told her what had happened. The old goat went out in grief, the youngest kid close behind her. They came to the tree and saw the wolf sleeping. He snored so loud that the branches shook.

   The old goat looked him up and down and saw that something moved around in his belly. "Is it possible," she said, "that my poor kids can still be alive inside the belly of this wolf?"

   She sent the kid home to get scissors, and a needle and thread. Then the goat cut open the stomach of the wolf. All six of her children popped out, one after another. None were injured in the slightest, for the wolf had swallowed them completely whole. They embraced their mother.

"Now go look for some big stones, and we will fill his stomach with them while he still slumbers," the mother goat said.

   The seven goats dragged in some stones and loaded them into his stomach. The old goat sewed him back up, so he never became aware of any of it. When the wolf finally awoke from his slumber, he stood up, and the stones in his stomach made him thirsty.

   He began to walk towards a well, but when he tried to walk, the stones knocked against each other and rattled. He realized that what sat in his stomach was not goats, but rather, a pile of rocks.

   When he finally made it to the well and bent over to drink from it, the heavy stones made him fall in, and he drowned miserably.

   When the seven goats saw the news, they ran to their mother shouting, "The wolf is dead!" And they all danced around in joy.