‘Go and fetch some big stones, children, and we will fill up the brute’s body while he is asleep.’
Then the seven Kids brought a lot of stones, as fast as they could carry them, and stuffed the Wolf with them till he could hold no more. The old mother quickly sewed him up, without his having noticed anything, or even moved.
At last, when the Wolf had had his sleep out, he got up, and, as the stones made him feel very thirsty, he wanted to go to a spring to drink. But as soon as he moved the stones began to roll about and rattle inside him. Then he cried—
‘What’s the rumbling and tumbling
That sets my stomach grumbling?
I thought ’twas six Kids, flesh and bones,
Now find it’s nought but rolling stones.’
When he reached the spring, and stooped over the water to drink, the heavy stones dragged him down, and he was drowned miserably.
When the seven Kids saw what had happened, they came running up, and cried aloud—‘The Wolf is dead, the Wolf is dead!’ and they and their mother capered and danced round the spring in their joy.