Fairy Tale Lore from Around the World - Little Red Riding Hood

Fairy Tale Lore from Around the World - Little Red Riding Hood 

Fairy tales are wonderful things, aren't they? Adorable stories of children learning valuable life lessons while encountering cute critters who sing and evil women offering tempting treats to innocent souls. But fairy tales weren't always so movie-like with bright songs and happily never afters. They really were rather grim, even before the brothers stepped in.

This year for Halloween, I'm looking at fairy tales from around the world and attempting to see where their tales originally spun themselves into the local lore. And the first tale plucked out of my personal fairy tale book collection is Little Red Riding Hood.

Little Red Riding Hood

Possible Origins

The origins of Red aren't as simple as people probably think. In fact, it's believed the oral tale that inspired the version we know today didn't even include people! But there was a wolf trying to feast on the helpless, which in this case were helpless goat babies, and Mr. Wolf, you can't eat the babies. Have you seen how cute baby goats are? You can't chow down on that level of cute without horror stories being written about you. You just can't.

But I digress...as always...

"The Wolf and the Kids" is thought to be the original Little Red Riding Hood, baby goats and all, and is known to be as old as the first century and Middle Eastern in origin. The Grimm Brothers wrote a version called "The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids" and my (insanely brief by my normal standards) research also found a version from Ukrainian folklore, which varies slightly from the Grimm version. As the original is so old, was originally oral, and retold a million times, I don't have a reference for the true original, so I'm going to say to take a look at both the Grimm version and the Ukraine version and pick your favorite (links below to all the tales mentioned).

Similar Tales

The version of Little Red Riding Hood most of us are familiar with was written by the Grimm Brothers in the mid-1800s. However, their version came almost two hundred years after Charles Perrault's "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge" and Huang Zhing's "The Tiger Grandmother," both dating from the late 1600s and from France and China, respectively. There are plenty of other versions from various countries but I think my favorite is the version from Andrew Lang's The Red Fairy Book which is derived from Charles Marelles's work: "The True History of Little Goldenhood."

In this version, the narrator starts by calling out the other versions as not the real story (gotta love a sassy start) and Little Miss's hood is magical thanks to Grandma Little. Even better, no huntsman to save the day, and I am all for women being the heroes in fairy tales, even if it means a spell or two (after all, we are talking about a talking wolfie, I think we can add a dash of protection magic to the mix of what we are willing to believe).

The (Folk) Lore

I've linked each story below so you can read them and pick your favorite. I already mentioned Goldenhood is my favorite, but tell me yours, I really want to know! Tell me in the comments, on Twitter, Discord, or any of my socials (links also below), even if it's a version not listed here because maybe, just maybe, that's the version I read next.

• "The Wolf and the Kids" - Ukrainian folk tale
• "The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids" - Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
• "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge" - Charles Perrault (link has both English and French translations)
• "The Tiger Grandmother" - Huang Zhing
• "Little Red Riding Hood" - Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (versions online have the title as "Little Red Cap" but my hard copy book is one of the versions with it as "Little Red Riding Hood," so I used that title.)
• "The True History of Little Goldenhood" - Charles Marelles

Lily's Thoughts

One of the things I enjoy about my Halloween lore is that I get to reset my mind. I loved the idea of looking into fairy tales, as they have always been part of my bookshelf and always will be. I wasn't really sure what path I was going to take this month with fairy tales until I sat down with my beloved books and flipped through them, looking for the perfect story to start with.

Red wasn't the first story I read either. There was one about spinning reeds and it was on the page after Goldenhood and thus began my rabbit hole. (Speaking of rabbit holes and fairy tales, if you are a fan of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, you might enjoy my personal pieces inspired by the wonderful Wonderland and all its citizens.)

I very easily could have researched and read every version I could get my eyes on, but the point of these Halloween pieces is less research and more fun! But I'm a nerd, a bookworm, and happiest elbow-deep in my notebooks, so pulling myself back from the research was done with a good deal of arguing with myself and pouting. However, I don't need to be researching fairy tales until next Halloween, so I stopped pouting and started writing and here we are, with me still needing a good ramble because I read too many words and now Writer Lily has more words in my head than are needed for the page. I suppose that means Researcher Lily should start looking into the next batch of fairy tales...

Until next time, Lore Lovers, stay spooky💖

~Lily

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Header photo by Šárka Jonášová on Unsplash

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Sources

Grimm 005: The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids. sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm005.html.

Grimm 26: Little Red Cap. sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm026.html.

kidworldcitizen. “Little Red Riding Hood: 3 Multicultural Versions of this Classic Folktale.” Kid World Citizen, 8 Oct. 2018, kidworldcitizen.org/little-red-riding-hood-3-multicultural-versions.

Kristin. Fairy Tale Hidden Treasures: The True History of Little Golden Hood. talesoffaerie.blogspot.com/2015/04/fairy-tale-hidden-treasures-true.html.

Lang, Andrew. “The True History of Little Golden Hood | Fairy Tales | Bedtime Stories.” Bedtime Stories, 23 June 2019, www.storyberries.com/fairy-tales-the-true-history-of-little-golden-hood-famous-fairy-tales.

Le Petit Chaperon Rouge: Little Red Riding Hood in French and English. www.thefrenchexperiment.com/stories/petitchaperonrouge.

Little Red Riding Hood. sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0333.html#grimm.

Lobb, Fred. Grandmother Tiger--the Earliest Recorded Mainland Version  (Han). chinesefolktales.blogspot.com/2018/06/grand-auntie-tiger-earliest-recorded.html.

Ltd, Marie Anderson Publisher. “Unveiling the Dark History of Little Red Riding Hood *.” Medium, 19 Apr. 2024, manonlove.medium.com/unveiling-the-dark-history-of-little-red-riding-hood-daf37c7bbe5a.

“Science on the trail of The Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood.” EurekAlert!, 13 Nov. 2013, www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/582037.

Wikipedia contributors. “Little Red Riding Hood.” Wikipedia, 22 Sept. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood.

The Wolf and the Kids Ukrainian folk tale. russian-crafts.com/russian-folk-tales/the-wolf-and-the-kids.html.