Once a girl set off through the forest to visit her grandmother. She brought along a basket of bread and milk. Around her head she wore a fine red kerchief her grandmother had gotten her.

Along the way the encountered a wolf. Although sinewy and fearsome, the wolf stayed mostly hidden in the shadows, greeting the girl with a smooth voice. She said hello in return.

"Where are you going on this fine day?" the wolf inquired.

"To my grandmother's house," answered the girl, matter-of-factly. "She lives through the woods in a beautiful cottage with pink roses out front."

"And which path are you taking?" the wolf queried. "The path of pins or the path of needles?"

"The path of pins."

So the wolf took the path of the needles and, sprinting, arrived first. He prowled around the cottage, spotted an open window, and let himself in. He took grandmother by surprise and forced her down into his slavering throat. Then he slipped into one of her nightgowns and crawled into bed.

Then the girl arrived. Knocking on the front door, she heard something like her grandmother's voice beckon her inside. She entered.

She set down the gifts she brought and offered a greeting to her grandmother.

But as she got closer to the figure on the bed, her nose and eyes made it clear something was amiss.

"Grandmother, what big eyes you have!" "Why, that's the better to see you with, my dear."

"And what a wet nose you have!"

"That's the better to smell you with, my dear."

"And what sharp teeth you have!"

"The better to eat you with!"

Just then the wolf disentangled himself from grandmother's gabardine and leapt at the girl, swallowing her whole just as he had her grandmother. But a woodsman on his way home had nosed the wolf's trail disappearing into the house, and jumped into the window. In a flash, the woodsman had lopped off the head of the wolf. From the wolf-corpse a hand extended itself, and the woodsman helped the girl and then her grandmother out of the wolf's body.