Wolf and Seven Kids Themed Board Game

Wolf and Seven Kids - Board Game, Illustrated by Otto Kubel

Wolf and Seven Kids is a classic fairy tale by the Grimm Brothers. The story inspired this board game where the wolf tries to catch seven kids. Each character, played by a participant, is represented by a playing figure. There is one piece for the wolf and seven pieces for the kids. A game can be played by at least two and up to eight players. The best number of players is between four and six. Everybody but the wolf plays with one dice. The beast has two that give him an advantage. Otto Kubel designed this game for Spear from Nuremberg in 1933.

The main attraction of the game is Kubel's illustrations with all the scenes from the fairy tale:

• Mother leaves her goslings alone and tells them not to open anybody but her.
• The wolf tries to enter the house soon after, but the kids recognize him by his voice and the look of his paws.
• The wolf takes care of his voice and appearance, so the kids (except the youngest one) believe that mom is back and open the door.
• The wolf enters and catches the goslings one by one.
• Only the youngest, who is hidden in the grandfather's clock, survives.
  Mother goat returns and finds the wrecking with only her youngest kid alive.
• The mother and the little kid find the wolf sleeping near their home with his stomach bloated.
• They cut his belly, rescue the kids, and fill it with stones.
• When the wolf wakes up, he is very thirsty, tries to drink from the well, and falls in.

This fairy tale is very close to the myth of Cronus, the son of Uranus and Gaia. Cronus is the god of time, Uranus of the sky, and Gaia of the earth. Cronus had a nasty habit of eating his children because he knew about the prophecy that one of his kids would kill him.

He ate several before Rhea, his wife, decided to trick him by hiding Zeus and giving him a stone to swallow. Zeus was raised in a hidden place, eventually grew up, defeated his father, and rescued his siblings.

We can easily recognize many important elements in this fairy tale:

• a dangerous father figure,
• a helpless mother figure,
• trickery,
• time (represented by clock),
  stones,
• cruel punishment.

Of course, we could present more, but you already got the picture.

Jacob Grimm believed that Wolf and Seven Kids is one of the proofs of his theory about the mythological origins of all fairy tales. Famous brothers were so convinced in their beliefs that they often rewrote 'original' (which were often known and printed for centuries) fairy tales to fit their theories.