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 was hidden in the shadows. When he greeted the girl with a smooth voice, however, he stepped from the shadows like Harvey Keitel in The Piano, revealing the full length of his male body. Her eyes widened, and she sputtered a 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. Taking grandma by surprise, he chased her into a closet and locked it shut. Then he slipped into one of her nightgowns, enjoying the feel of the female undergarments on his body, 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.

"Take off your clothes and get into bed," the grandmother/wolf instructed.

So the girl removed her apron and asked, "what shall I do with it?" "Throw it on the fire, you won't need it anymore."

For each garment, from her kerchief to her bodice and petticoats, she stripped it off and asked the same question. Always, the wolf told her, "throw it on the fire," and she did. The wolf gazed at the fire glinting off her nubile form and he beckoned her closer, patting a place on the bed where she was to sit down.

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," said the wolf, groping the girl as she sat on the bed.

"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. But a woodsman on his way home had nosed the wolf's trail disappearing into the house, and jumped into the window just in time. He clubbed the wolf on the head with his axe and sent the creature limping dazed out the front door.

The nude girl fell into the woodsman's arms, and the two of them put thoughts of grandmother aside as they fell into bed.

Later, they freed grandmother from confinement and made a meal of the cottage's provisions.

The wolf, meanwhile, was wailing outside, hungry, love-starved and still dizzy.