The True History of Little Golden Hood
‘All the better for answering, child.’ ‘Oh! what a mouthful of great white teeth you have, Grandmother!’ ‘That’s for crunching little children with! ‘And the Wolf opened his jaws wide to swallow Blanchette. But she put down her head crying: ‘Mamma! Mamma!’ and the Wolf only caught her little hood. Thereupon, oh dear! oh dear! he draws back, crying and shaking his jaw as if he had swallowed red-hot coals. It was the little fire-coloured hood that had burnt his tongue right down his throat. The little hood, you see, was one of those magic caps that they used to have in former times, in the stories, for making oneself invisible or invulnerable. So there was the Wolf with his throat burnt, jumping off the bed and trying to find the door, howling and howling as if all the dogs in the country were at his heels. Just at this moment the Grandmother arrives, returning from the town with her long sack empty on her shoulder. ‘Ah, brigand!’ she cries, ‘wait a bit!’ Quickly she opens her sack...