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Grimms' Fairy Tales
Little
Red Cap
Once upon a time there was a dear little girl
who was loved by every one who looked at her, but most of
all by her grandmother, and there was nothing that she would
not have given to the child. Once she gave her a little
cap of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would
never wear anything else; so she was always called "Little
Red-Cap."
One day her mother said to her, "Come, Little Red-Cap,
here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine; take them
to your grandmother, she is ill and weak, and they will
do her good. Set out before it gets hot, and when you are
going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path,
or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother
will get nothing; and when you go into her room, don't forget
to say, 'Good-morning,' and don't peep into every corner
before you do it."
"I will take great care," said Little Red-Cap
to her mother, and gave her hand on it.
The grandmother lived out in the wood, half a league from
the village, and just as Little Red-Cap entered the wood,
a wolf met her. Red-Cap did not know what a wicked creature
he was, and was not at all afraid of him.
"Good-day, Little Red-Cap," said he.
"Thank you kindly, wolf."
"Whither away so early, Little Red-Cap?"
"To my grandmother's."
"What have you got in your apron?"
"Cake and wine; yesterday was baking-day, so poor
sick grandmother is to have something good, to make her
stronger."
"Where does your grandmother live, Little Red-Cap?"
"A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood;
her house stands under the three large oak-trees, the nut-trees
are just below; you surely must know it," replied Little
Red-Cap.
The wolf thought to himself, "What a tender young
creature! what a nice plump mouthful -- she will be better
to eat than the old woman. I must act craftily, so as to
catch both." So he walked for a short time by the side
of Little Red-Cap, and then he said, "See Little Red-Cap,
how pretty the flowers are about here -- why do you not
look round? I believe, too, that you do not hear how sweetly
the little birds are singing; you walk gravely along as
if you were going to school, while everything else out here
in the wood is merry."
Little Red-Cap raised her eyes, and when she saw the sunbeams
dancing here and there through the trees, and pretty flowers
growing everywhere, she thought, "Suppose I take grandmother
a fresh nosegay; that would please her too. It is so early
in the day that I shall still get there in good time;"
and so she ran from the path into the wood to look for flowers.
And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw
a still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so
got deeper and deeper into the wood.
Meanwhile the wolf ran straight to the grandmother's house
and knocked at the door.
"Who is there?"
"Little Red-Cap," replied the wolf. "She
is bringing cake and wine; open the door."
"Lift the latch," called out the grandmother,
"I am too weak, and cannot get up."
The wolf lifted the latch, the door flew open, and without
saying a word he went straight to the grandmother's bed,
and devoured her. Then he put on her clothes, dressed himself
in her cap, laid himself in bed and drew the curtains.
Little Red-Cap, however, had been running about picking
flowers, and when she had gathered so many that she could
carry no more, she remembered her grandmother, and set out
on the way to her.
She was surprised to find the cottage-door standing open,
and when she went into the room, she had such a strange
feeling that she said to herself, "Oh dear! how uneasy
I feel to-day, and at other times I like being with grandmother
so much." She called out, "Good morning,"
but received no answer; so she went to the bed and drew
back the curtains. There lay her grandmother with her cap
pulled far over her face, and looking very strange.
"Oh! grandmother," she said, "what big ears
you have!"
"The better to hear you with, my child," was
the reply.
"But, grandmother, what big eyes you have!" she
said.
"The better to see you with, my dear."
"But, grandmother, what large hands you have!"
"The better to hug you with."
"Oh! but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you
have!"
"The better to eat you with!"
And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with one bound
he was out of bed and swallowed up Red-Cap.
When the wolf had appeased his appetite, he lay down again
in the bed, fell asleep and began to snore very loud. The
huntsman was just passing the house, and thought to himself,
"How the old woman is snoring! I must just see if she
wants anything." So he went into the room, and when
he came to the bed, he saw that the wolf was lying in it.
"Do I find thee here, thou old sinner!" said he.
"I have long sought thee!" Then just as he was
going to fire at him, it occurred to him that the wolf might
have devoured the grandmother, and that she might still
be saved, so he did not fire, but took a pair of scissors,
and began to cut open the stomach of the sleeping wolf.
When he had made two snips, he saw the little Red-Cap shining,
and then he made two snips more, and the little girl sprang
out, crying, "Ah, how frightened I have been! How dark
it was inside the wolf;" and after that the aged grandmother
came out alive also, but scarcely able to breathe. Red-Cap,
however, quickly fetched great stones with which they filled
the wolf's body, and when he awoke, he wanted to run away,
but the stones were so heavy that he fell down at once,
and fell dead.
Then all three were delighted. The huntsman drew off the
wolf's skin and went home with it; the grandmother ate the
cake and drank the wine which Red-Cap had brought, and revived,
but Red-Cap thought to herself, "As long as I live,
I will never by myself leave the path, to run into the wood,
when my mother has forbidden me to do so."
*
It is also related that once when Red-Cap was again taking
cakes to the old grandmother, another wolf spoke to her,
and tried to entice her from the path. Red-Cap, however,
was on her guard, and went straight forward on her way,
and told her grandmother that she had met the wolf, and
that he had said "good-morning" to her, but with
such a wicked look in his eyes, that if they had not been
on the public road she was certain he would have eaten her
up. "Well," said the grandmother, "we will
shut the door, that he may not come in." Soon afterwards
the wolf knocked, and cried, "Open the door, grandmother,
I am little Red-Cap, and am fetching you some cakes."
But they did not speak, or open the door, so the grey-beard
stole twice or thrice round the house, and at last jumped
on the roof, intending to wait until Red-Cap went home in
the evening, and then to steal after her and devour her
in the darkness. But the grandmother saw what was in his
thoughts. In front of the house was a great stone trough,
so she said to the child, "Take the pail, Red-Cap;
I made some sausages yesterday, so carry the water in which
I boiled them to the trough." Red-Cap carried until
the great trough was quite full. Then the smell of the sausages
reached the wolf, and he sniffed and peeped down, and at
last stretched out his neck so far that he could no longer
keep his footing and began to slip, and slipped down from
the roof straight into the great trough, and was drowned.
But Red-Cap went joyously home, and never did anything to
harm any one.
From Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Household Tales, trans. Margaret
Hunt (London: George Bell, 1884), 1:110-114. |
