The history of Little Red Riding Hood arose in a time so distant that no one dares to say exactly when. But it was the people who laid it down. So "Little Red Riding Hood" is primarily a folk epic. In any case, the first mention of this story about a girl who went to visit her grandmother and met a wolf on the road was recorded in Tyrol and the foothills of the Alps - there she was known at least from the XIV century
She was told all over Europe - both in the homes of commoners and in the castles of the nobility. Actually, it was a lot of stories: in the north of Italy, the granddaughter brought fresh fish to her grandmother, in Switzerland - a head of young cheese, in the south of France - a pie and a pot of butter; in some cases the wolf was the winner, in others the girl.
And in 1697 in Paris a certain Charles Perrault published the first literary version of this old folk tale in Paris - in the book "Tales of My Mother Goose, or History and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings", dedicated to the princess of the French royal house.
Perrault took one of the options as a basis, dressed the nameless girl in a “companion” cap made of scarlet velvet and gave her the name - Little Red Riding Hood. It must be said that in France at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries, when social differences in clothing were strictly regulated, such headdresses were worn only by aristocrats and women of the
middle class. A simple country girl, who easily walked in a velvet cap of a defiant color, and even - contrary to her mother's orders - entered into a conversation with a stranger, clearly understood a lot about herself. Therefore, in the final, the wolf taught a cruel lesson to all the windy young ladies: he "pounced on Little Red Riding Hood and swallowed her."
The gallant author crowned the "sweet trifle" (as he called his fairy tale) with morality:
The popularity of Perrault's book was amazing, although the 69-year-old author himself, a prominent royal official and a member of the French Academy, fearing ridicule, at first did not dare to put his own name on the collection, so for the first time "Tales of Mother Goose" was published under the signature of the 11-year-old son of the writer - D'Armankourt.
But let's leave Perrault for the time being and look a little ahead in 1812, when in German Kassel the philologists brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm presented their version of Little Red Riding Hood, combining oral stories, Charles Perrault's fairy tale, as well as the poetic play Life and Death of Red Hats”, written in 1800 by the German romantic writer Ludwig Tieck (it was Tieck who introduced into the history of the hunter who rescues a girl and grandmother from the belly of a wolf).
2. Did you know that …
The Brothers Grimm are rather cruel in the story about Little Red Riding Hood:
- Granny Riding Hood does not live in another village, but in the forest itself.
- Little Riding Hood brings a cake and a bottle of wine to grandmother (!)
- Mother of Little Red Riding Hood before her exit strictly admonishes her: “Go modestly, as it should be; do not turn aside from the road, but what good, you fall and break the bottle, then grandmother will get nothing. And when you enter her
room, do not forget to say hello to her, and not that first look in all corners here and there."
- The wolf reproaches the girl that she is going, "as if she is in a hurry to school", offers to "have fun in the forest" (!!)
- Having eaten the grandmother, the wolf does not just go to her bed, but first puts on a dress and a cap (you doesn't it look like anything?).
- Seeing a wolf, the hunter takes scissors (!!!) and rips open the sleeping belly.
- When grandmother and Cap are free, the hunter stuffs the wolf's belly with large stones. Waking up, the wolf wants
run away, but heavy stones are pulled down, and he falls dead.
Well, tell me - do you remember such nuances from Little Red Riding Hood? I personally don't.
But this is not the end of this "good" fairy tale …
After each of the winners receives his reward: the hunter takes home the skin taken from the wolf, the grandmother, having eaten the cake and drunk wine, recovers, and Little Red Riding Hood learns a life lesson: “From these since then I will never turn off the main road alone without my mother's permission. After all this, the girl meets another wolf in the forest (!), And this meeting turns out to be fatal for him: Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother, without anyone's help, drown the stupid villain in a trough (!!).
But the story of the second wolf in the twentieth century was forgotten, it is not mentioned in all modern editions of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. In essence, this is a sequel, a story about a completely different girl - more experienced, correct, who has learned the lessons of the “previous series”.
3. How many people, so many opinions.
At the beginning of the publication of this tale, she did not enjoy success at all among the "masses", but after the completion of the tale by the Brothers Grimm, it sold out with a bang. The tale has become a proverb in tongues and many began to look for hidden sub-meanings and secondary plans in it.
And since the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm were published in the year of the victory over Napoleon, in 1812, and were gathered at a time when the Rhine lands were under the French heel, some researchers saw a French "intruder" in the wolf, in Little Red Riding Hood - the suffering German people, and in the hunter - the expected disinterested liberator. A century later, the ideologues of the Third Reich, who declared the Brothers Grimm's Children's and Household Tales a holy book (!), Wrote in all seriousness that Little Red Riding Hood embodies the German people pursued by the wolf of Jewry (!!).
The Grimms themselves, deeply religious people, saw in Little Red Riding Hood a single symbol of rebirth - descent into darkness and transformation. A hundred years later, Christian researchers who developed this idea declared Little Red Riding Hood the personification of human passions: vanity, self-interest and hidden lust. In the wolf, these same passions are clearly and definitely embodied. Only freed from a wolf's belly, as if reborn, the girl is transformed.
Neo-mythologists argued that the fairy tale reflects the change of natural phenomena: the grandmother living in the forest in the house “under three large oak trees” is mother nature, Little Red Riding Hood is the sun, the wolf is winter, and the hunter is the new year.
Neopagansconsidered the most positive character in the wolf's tale. The red color of the girl's headdress seemed to them the embodiment of danger, and the grandmother living in a dense forest evoked associations with Baba Yaga and the goddess of death of the ancient Germans (by the way, pies and wine were a common sacrifice to the dead and other representatives of the afterlife among all Indo-Europeans). So the wolf seemed to them something like a hero-ancestor who tried to free the world from death and who fell a victim in an unequal struggle.
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Something
else interesting about the wolf … Initially, in the oral tradition of the fairy tale about Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf was not just a beast, but a werewolf (!) (It is from here that his ability to speak in a human voice and successful attempts to disguise himself as a grandmother).
On the contrary, the people of the 19th century saw a pure image in Little Red Riding Hood.
And the twentieth century made a brand and diagnosis out of Little Red Riding Hood. So, in the 30s, supporters of Freud's student Erich Fromm stated that Little Red Riding Hood is a fully matured girl, and her headdress is a symbol of physiological maturity. The mother's warnings to stay out of the way and to beware of breaking the bottle are warnings against accidental relationships and loss of virginity. The main characters of the tale are three generations of women. The wolf, embodying the masculine principle, is a “ruthless and cunning animal,” and the hunter is a conventional image of Little Red Riding Hood's father. In general, the story tells about the triumph of the female half of humanity over the male and returns the reader to the world of matriarchy (!).
In the 60s, during the era of the sexual revolution and the heyday of feminism, researchers started talking about the fact that swallowing is rape. At the same time, the girl herself (!) Provokes the wolf into active actions: wears a bright hat, talks to a stranger, has fun in the forest … At the same time, the wolf turns out to be a transvestite (dressing up in grandmother's clothes) and secretly envies the female ability to become pregnant. That is why he swallows the grandmother and granddaughter whole, trying to put living things in his belly. At the end of the wolf, stones are killed - symbols of sterility, which is a mockery of the desire to play in labor …
4. Folklore plot
One day, a mother told her little daughter to take bread and milk to her grandmother.
In the forest, a wolf approached the girl and asked where she was going.
- To my grandmother, - she answered.
- And which path will you follow - the one with the needles, or the one with the thorns?
- The one with the needles.
And then the wolf ran along the path with thorns and was the first to reach grandmother's house. He killed the grandmother, drained her blood into a bottle, and cut the body into pieces and laid them on a platter. Then he put on his grandmother's nightgown and climbed into bed to wait.
Knock Knock.
- Come on in, honey.
- Hello, grandmother. I brought you bread and milk.
- Eat yourself, dear. There is meat and wine in the pantry.
While the girl was eating meat, the cat hissed at her and said:
- Don't eat your grandmother's flesh!
The wolf threw a shoe at the cat, but did not hit. When the girl began to drink 'wine' and complained that it was too salty, the cat hissed even louder and shouted:
- Stop drinking your grandmother's blood!
The second shoe (and they were large and carved from wood), thrown by the wolf, hit the cat and killed it.
After that, the wolf said:
- Take off your clothes and lie down next to me.
- Where should I put my apron?
“Throw it into the fire, you won't need it anymore.
The girl asked the same question about all her clothes: about a skirt, sweater, underskirt and stockings, - the wolf answered each time:
- Throw it into the fire, you will no longer need them.
When the girl climbed into bed, she said:
- Oh, grandmother, how hairy you are!
- This is to make me feel warmer, my child.
- Oh, grandmother, what broad shoulders you have!
- This is to make it easier to carry brushwood, my child!
- Oh, grandma, what long nails you have!
- This is to make it easier to scratch my child !!
- Oh, grandmother, what teeth you have more!
- This is to quickly eat you, my child!
And he took it and ate it.
This is how most of the recorded variants end, although in some the girl, with the help of cunning, escapes from the wolf.
