The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids
The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids (or The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats, among similar titles) is a German fairy tale written by the Brothers Grimm, first published in 1812 in the original Grimms' Fairy Tales collection. It has resemblances to the stories of Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs, so it has been thought to be inspired by them.
The story begins in a house in a forest where a mother goat and her seven kids live. The mother goat leaves to get food, warning her kids to not open the door for the wolf, who will eat them if he enters. After she leaves, the wolf tries to get into the house twice by pretending to be the mother goat. The kids see through him, first by his gruff voice, then by the color of his paws, and refuse to let him in. After softening his voice and whitening his paws, the wolf successfully tricks the kids into opening the door, whereupon he eats all but the youngest one, who managed to hide. When the mother goat returns, the youngest kid tells her what had happened. They soon find the wolf fast asleep outside. The mother goat cuts his belly open with a pair of scissors and rescues the swallowed kids, then they fill his belly with rocks and sew him back up. When the wolf wakes up, he goes to get a drink of water, but the weight of the rocks causes him to fall into the water and drown, much to the goats' joy.
Grimm's Fairy Tales: Retold in One-Syllable Words
This book includes the story The Wolf and the Six Little Kids, featuring six kids instead of seven.
Other adaptations
- The World's Greatest Fairy Tales
- Merlin's Cave
- My Favorite Fairy Tales
- Sekai Meisaku Dōwa (World Masterpiece Fairy Tale)
- Merhen Ōkoku
- Simsala Grimm
- Onegai My Melody
- Masha and the Bear
