Prevod

Once upon a time there was an old goat who had seven little kids, and she loved them as a mother loves her children. One day she wanted to go into the forest to fetch some food, so she called all seven to her and said, "Dear children, I am going out into the forest. Be on your guard against the wolf. If he gets in, he will gobble you up, skin and all. The villain often disguises himself, but you will know him at once by his gruff voice and his black feet." The little kids said, "Dear Mother, we will take good care of ourselves. You can go without a worry." Then the old goat bleated and set off with an easy mind.

Before long, someone knocked at the front door and called, "Open up, dear children! Your mother is here, and she has brought something for each of you!" But the little kids knew by the gruff voice that it was the wolf. "We won't open the door!" they cried. "You are not our mother. She has a soft, sweet voice, but yours is gruff. You are the wolf!" So the wolf went to a shopkeeper and bought a large piece of chalk. He ate it, and it made his voice soft. Then he came back, knocked at the front door, and called, "Open up, dear children! Your mother is here, and she has brought something for each of you!" But the wolf had put his black paw on the windowsill, and the children saw it and cried, "We won't open the door! Our mother doesn't have a black foot like yours. You are the wolf!" Then the wolf ran to a baker and said, "I have hurt my foot. Spread some dough over it." Once the baker had coated his paw, he ran to the miller and said, "Sprinkle some white flour on my paw." The miller thought, "The wolf means to trick someone," and refused. But the wolf said, "If you don't do it, I'll eat you!" Then the miller grew frightened and whitened his paw for him. Yes, that is how people are.

Now the villain went to the front door for the third time, knocked, and said, "Open up, children! Your dear mother has come home and brought something from the forest for each of you!" The little kids called, "Show us your paw first, so we can be sure you are our dear mother." So the wolf put his paw on the windowsill, and when they saw that it was white, they believed everything he said and opened the door. But it was the wolf who came in. The little kids were terrified and tried to hide. One jumped under the table, the second into the bed, the third into the oven, the fourth into the kitchen, the fifth into the cupboard, the sixth under the washbasin, and the seventh into the case of the wall clock. But the wolf found them all and wasted no time: one after another, he swallowed them down his throat. Only the youngest, in the clock case, escaped his notice. Once the wolf had satisfied his appetite, he lumbered off, lay down beneath a tree in the green meadow outside, and fell asleep.

Not long afterward, the old goat came home from the forest. Oh, what a sight met her eyes! The front door stood wide open; the table, chairs, and benches had been overturned; the washbasin lay in pieces; and the blanket and pillow had been pulled out of the bed. She searched for her children, but they were nowhere to be found. She called them each by name, one after another, but no one answered. At last, when she called the youngest, a little voice cried, "Dear Mother, I'm in the clock case!" She took the little kid out, and it told her that the wolf had come and eaten all the others. You can imagine how she wept for her poor children!

At last she went outside in her grief, and the youngest little kid ran along with her. When she reached the meadow, there lay the wolf beneath the tree, snoring so loudly that the branches shook. She looked him over from every side and saw something moving and wriggling in his bulging belly. "Oh, heavens," she thought, "could my poor children, whom he gulped down for his supper, still be alive?" She sent the little kid running home to fetch scissors, a needle, and thread. Then she cut open the monster's belly, and scarcely had she made the first snip when a little kid poked its head out. As she cut farther, all six sprang out, one after another. They were all still alive and had not suffered so much as a scratch, for in his greed the monster had swallowed them whole. What rejoicing there was! They hugged their dear mother and skipped about like a tailor on his wedding day. But the old goat said, "Now go and find some heavy stones. We will fill this wicked creature's belly with them while he is still asleep." The seven little kids hurried to bring the stones and stuffed as many as they could into his belly. Then the old goat quickly sewed him up again, so gently that he noticed nothing and did not even stir.

When the wolf had finally had his sleep, he got to his feet, and because the stones in his stomach had made him terribly thirsty, he decided to go to a well for a drink. But as he began to walk and move about, the stones in his belly knocked together and rattled. Then he cried:

"What rumbles and tumbles Inside my belly so? Six little kids, I thought I'd swallowed, But heavy stones are all that followed." And when he reached the well and bent over the water to drink, the heavy stones pulled him in, and he drowned miserably. When the seven little kids saw this, they came running up and cried aloud, "The wolf is dead! The wolf is dead!" And they danced for joy with their mother around the well.