Le Petit Chaperon rouge

Little Red Riding Hood

1Le loup dans le litThe wolf in the bedFree5m

A village girl, the prettiest anyone has seen, wears a little red hood her grandmother made her, so everyone calls her Le Petit Chaperon rouge. Her mother sends her with a galette and a little pot of butter to her sick grandmother in another village. In the wood she meets the wolf, who dares not eat her because woodcutters are near; she tells him where her grandmother lives, past the mill, the first house of the village, and he proposes a race by two paths. He runs the short way while she gathers hazelnuts, chases butterflies and makes posies. At the grandmother's house he imitates the girl, is told «Tire la chevillette, la bobinette cherra», eats the grandmother, shuts the door and lies down in her bed. The girl arrives, is frightened by the big voice but thinks her grandmother has a cold, is told the same words, comes in and is asked to put the galette and the butter down and come into the bed. Astonished, she wonders at the big arms, legs, ears, eyes and teeth; «C'est pour te manger», and the wolf eats her. Perrault's moral: children must not listen to anyone at all, and the gentle wolves are the most dangerous.

Retold from Histoires ou Contes du temps passé (Claude Barbin, Paris 1697): Le Petit Chaperon rouge by Charles Perrault (public domain).