Madness to talk peace with a wolf

I have run through most of the poems in Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes; there’s two more left but they are kind of intertwined so I’ll tackle them at the same time. They are Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs. You might be puzzled and wonder what’s the connection between these two stories. Well, the title of this post should clue you in; the villains in these two stories are wolves, and so here it goes…

It was the same drill with the wolf being hungry and eating Little Red Riding Hood’s grandma, and that cross-dressing wolf putting on granny’s clothes to fool the little girl. They went through the familiar dialogue of her asking him about his big eyes and ears; then she asked him about his furry coat.

Then Little Red Riding Hood said,
'But Grandma, what a lovely
great big furry coat you have on.'

'That's wrong!' cried Wolf. 'Have you forgot
'To tell me what BIG TEETH I've got?
'Ah well, no matter what you say,
'I'm going to eat you anyway.'

Do you think Little Red Riding Hood screamed in fear? Nope, she smiled and pulled a pistol from her knickers and shot him in the head. I have never thought that that little girl could be a gunslinger. And so the story ends with this:

I came across Miss Riding Hood.
But what a change! No cloak of red,
No silly hood upon her head.
She said, 'Hello, and do please note
'My lovely furry WOLF-SKINCOAT.'

With that new "lovely furry wolfskin coat" word got around how good she is with wolves, and this is where our next story comes in.

Pigs are noble. Pigs are clever,
Pigs are courteous. However,
Now and then, to break this rule,
One meets a pig who is a fool.

For instance, the first pig who made a house from straws and became bacon and ham to the hungry wolf; there’s the second pig who made a house on sticks and whose house was blown down and nicely chopped up by the wolf’s nasty fangs. But the wolf finally met his match in the third pig who built his house with bricks; he huffed and he puffed but couldn’t blow the house down.

'If I can't blow it down,' Wolf said,
'I'll have to blow it up instead.
'I'll come back in the dead of night
'And blow it up with dynamite!'

The third pig still got his wits with him, and did the most logical thing to do; he called for help and dialled Ms. Riding Hood’s number. “Wolf! I’ve got one at my door,” he cried to her. “Don’t fret, for that’s up my alley ,” she said. So she came after her newly washed hair had dried and met the wolf with his sharp teeth , raw gums and spit dripping from his jaw. The maiden’s eyelid flickered once more, drawn the pistol from her knickers and hits the wolf with a single shot.

All’s well that ends well, isn’t it? Sorry, but the third pig was equally a fool.

Ah, Piglet, you must never trust
Young ladies from the upper crust.
For now, Miss Riding Hood, one notes,
Not only has two wolf-skin coats,
But when she goes from place to place,
She has a PIGSKIN TRAVELLING CASE.