Little Red Cap

The Red Cap

Once upon a time there was a sweet little girl whom everyone loved as soon as they saw her, but her grandmother loved her most of all and never knew what more she might give the child. Once she gave her a little cap of red velvet. It suited her so well, and she would wear nothing else, that she came to be called Little Red Cap.

A Mother’s Request

One day her mother said to her,

“Come, Little Red Cap. Here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine. Take them out to your grandmother; she is ill and weak, and they will refresh her. Set off before it grows hot. When you are out, walk properly and quietly, and do not run off the path, or you will fall and break the bottle, and your grandmother will have nothing. When you enter her room, do not forget to say good morning, and do not first go peering into every corner.”

“I will do everything properly,”

Little Red Cap told her mother, and gave her her hand on it.

Beauty and Temptation

Her grandmother lived out in the forest, half an hour from the village. When Little Red Cap entered the forest, she met the wolf. But Little Red Cap did not know what a wicked animal he was, and was not afraid of him.

“Good day, Little Red Cap,”

he said.

“Thank you kindly, Wolf.”

“Where are you going so early, Little Red Cap?”

“To Grandmother’s.”

“What are you carrying under your apron?”

“Cake and wine. We baked yesterday, so my sick, weak grandmother can have something good and regain her strength.”

“Little Red Cap, where does your grandmother live?”

“A good quarter of an hour farther into the forest. Her house stands beneath the three great oak trees, with the nut hedges below. Surely you know the place,”

said Little Red Cap. The wolf thought to himself,

“This tender young thing is a plump morsel; she will taste even better than the old woman. You must be cunning about it, so that you catch them both.”

He walked beside Little Red Cap for a little while, then said,

“Little Red Cap, look at the lovely flowers all around. Why do you not look about you? I do not think you even hear how sweetly the little birds are singing. You walk along as though you were going to school, when it is so cheerful out here in the forest.”

Little Red Cap lifted her eyes. When she saw the sunbeams dancing here and there through the trees, and lovely flowers everywhere, she thought,

“If I bring Grandmother a fresh bunch of flowers, that will make her happy too. It is so early in the day that I will still arrive in good time.”

She ran off the path into the forest and looked for flowers. Whenever she picked one, she thought a lovelier one stood farther away, and ran after it, going deeper and deeper into the forest.

Beyond the Door

But the wolf went straight to Grandmother’s house and knocked at the door.

“Who is outside?”

“Little Red Cap, bringing cake and wine. Open the door.”

“Just press the latch,”

Grandmother called.

“I am too weak to get up.”

The wolf pressed the latch. The door sprang open, and without saying a word he went straight to Grandmother’s bed and swallowed her. Then he put on her clothes and her cap, lay down in her bed, and drew the curtains. Little Red Cap had been running about after flowers. When she had gathered so many that she could carry no more, she remembered Grandmother again and set off for her house. She was surprised to find the door standing open. When she entered the room, it felt so strange that she thought,

“Oh, dear God, how frightened I feel today, when I am usually so glad to be with Grandmother!”

She called,

“Good morning,”

but received no answer. Then she went to the bed and drew back the curtains. There lay Grandmother, with her cap pulled low over her face, looking very strange.

“Oh, Grandmother, what big ears you have!”

“So that I can hear you better.”

“Oh, Grandmother, what big eyes you have!”

“So that I can see you better.”

“Oh, Grandmother, what big hands you have!”

“So that I can seize you better.”

“But, Grandmother, what a terribly big mouth you have!”

“So that I can eat you better.”

Danger and Rescue

No sooner had the wolf said this than he leaped out of bed and swallowed poor Little Red Cap. Once the wolf had satisfied his appetite, he lay down in bed again, fell asleep, and began to snore very loudly. The huntsman was just passing the house and thought,

“How the old woman is snoring! You must see whether something is wrong with her.”

He entered the room, and when he came to the bed, he saw the wolf lying there.

“So I find you here, you old sinner,”

he said.

“I have been looking for you for a long time.”

He was about to raise his gun when it occurred to him that the wolf might have eaten Grandmother, and that she might still be saved. He did not shoot. Instead, he took a pair of scissors and began to cut open the sleeping wolf’s belly. After a couple of cuts, he saw the red cap shining through. With a few more cuts, the girl sprang out and cried,

“Oh, how frightened I was! How dark it was inside the wolf’s body!”

Then the old grandmother came out alive too, scarcely able to breathe. Little Red Cap quickly fetched large stones, and with them they filled the wolf’s belly. When he woke, he tried to leap away, but the stones were so heavy that he sank down at once and fell dead.

A Promise to Herself

All three were glad. The huntsman stripped the skin from the wolf and went home with it. Grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine Little Red Cap had brought, and recovered. But Little Red Cap thought,

“Never again in all your life will you run off the path alone into the forest when Mother has forbidden it.”

The Second Wolf

It is also told that once, when Little Red Cap was again taking baked things to her old grandmother, another wolf spoke to her and tried to lead her off the path. But Little Red Cap was on her guard and went straight on her way. She told Grandmother that she had met a wolf who had wished her good day but had looked at her with such wicked eyes.

“If it had not been on the open road, he would have eaten me.”

“Come,”

said Grandmother,

“let us shut the door so that he cannot get in.”

Soon afterward the wolf knocked and called,

“Open up, Grandmother. I am Little Red Cap, bringing you baked things.”

But they kept silent and did not open the door. The grey-headed fellow crept around the house several times, then at last sprang onto the roof. He meant to wait until Little Red Cap went home that evening, follow her secretly, and eat her in the darkness. But Grandmother saw what he had in mind. A large stone trough stood in front of the house. She said to the child,

“Take the bucket, Little Red Cap. Yesterday I cooked sausages. Carry the water they were cooked in out to the trough.”

Little Red Cap carried water until the great, great trough was completely full. The smell of the sausages rose into the wolf’s nose. He sniffed and looked down. At last he stretched his neck so far that he could no longer keep his balance and began to slide. He slid down from the roof, straight into the great trough, and drowned.

The Same Path, New Understanding

Little Red Cap went happily home, and no one did her any harm.