Little Red Riding Hood and the Path Through the Wood

Once upon a time there was a little girl who wore a red cloak with a hood, so everybody called her Little Red Riding Hood.

One morning her mother packed a basket with cake and honey and a bottle of elderflower. “Take this to Grandmother,” she said. “Stay on the path, and don't stop to talk to anyone.”

Little Red Riding Hood walked into the wood, swinging her basket. The birds sang, the leaves whispered, and the path wound this way and that between the trees.

Then, from behind a tree, out stepped a wolf. “Good morning,” said the wolf, very politely. “And where are you going with that lovely basket?”

Little Red Riding Hood forgot what her mother had said. “To Grandmother's cottage,” she said, “at the end of the path.”

They came to a place where the path split in two. “Why not pick some flowers for her?” said the wolf, pointing one way. And while Little Red Riding Hood picked bluebells, the wolf ran off the other way, as fast as his legs would go.

The wolf knocked at Grandmother's door. But Grandmother was wise, and she had seen the wolf through the window. She slipped out of the back door and ran for the woodcutter.

So the wolf put on Grandmother's nightcap and her spectacles, and climbed into her bed, and pulled the covers up to his nose, and waited.

Little Red Riding Hood knocked and came in. “Grandmother,” she said, “what big ears you have!” “All the better to hear you with,” said the wolf.

“Grandmother, what big eyes you have!” “All the better to see you with.” “Grandmother, what big teeth you have!” “All the better to…”

Bang! went the door, and in came the woodcutter, with Grandmother right behind him waving her umbrella. The wolf jumped out of the bed, still wearing the nightcap, and ran out of the cottage and away into the wood.

And he ran so far, and so fast, that he never came back, not once, not ever.

Then the three of them sat down together and ate the cake and the honey, and drank the elderflower, and laughed about the wolf in the nightcap until their sides ached.

“I should have stayed on the path,” said Little Red Riding Hood. “Yes,” said Grandmother, “but the bluebells are lovely.”

On the way home, Little Red Riding Hood came to the place where the path split in two. This time she did not stop to think about it at all.

She took the path home, and stayed on it all the way, and the birds sang the whole way with her. The End.