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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe History of Little Red Riding Hood<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
To briefly summarize the history behind this story, in 17th-century French oral tradition, \u201cLe petit chaperon rouge\u201d (\u201cLittle Red Riding Hood\u201d) and its accompanying wolf character (Le loup) were separate stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLe petit chaperon rouge\u201d was a short tale told to children, which explains the full title of Charles Perrault\u2019s 17th-century version of the tale: \u201cLe petit chaperon rouge, ou La m\u00e9prise du loup\u201d (The Little Red Riding Hood, or The Wolf\u2019s mistake). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this part of France, le loup (\u201cthe wolf\u201d) was a person, not an animal. There was also the story of le loup-garou (\u201cthe werewolf\u201d), who resulted from a mortal being bitten by a loup-garou and then transforming into a loup-garou themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was the case of Fran\u00e7ois Villon, widely regarded as France\u2019s greatest 15th-century poet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story goes that after being arrested and thrown in prison for stealing from a church, he tried to escape by climbing out his cell window; the guards heard him trying to climb down the walls and shot him with arrows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Villon supposedly returned sometime later\u2014but not only had he escaped prison, but he\u2019d also recovered after being shot by archers multiple times! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only at this point did they realize that it wasn\u2019t Villon who had climbed out of his window but a loup-garou who had taken on Villon\u2019s form. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The legend goes even deeper than this: According to scholar Jack London (1972), it was said that Villon\u2019s loup-garou form would roam the streets of Paris at night, getting into brawls and killing people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though this is all impossible to prove, it\u2019s still interesting nonetheless and has a part to play in the thick plot of Little Red Riding Hood and her oral history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Little Red Riding Hood Story with a Twist<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
So, Perrault took elements from both \u201cle petit chaperon rouge\u201d and \u201cle loup.\u201d The wolf also acquired many different motives in his various appearances: In some retellings (including Charles Perrault\u2019s version), he devours the grandmother because she refuses to give him any food. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In others, he does so out of sheer maliciousness or for no reason at all; while yet other versions have the wolf only scaring the grandmother to death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So yeah, a wildly different interpretation from what we\u2019re all used to! There have been many different interpretations of this story, including the \u201cSleeping Beauty\u201d themed ones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In some versions, such as \u201cLittle Red Riding Hood with the Golden Hair,\u201d she is more of an antagonist than a heroine: She\u2019s portrayed as vain and disobedient to her grandmother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she comes across a stranger in the woods, it ends up turning out to be a prince who has been magically transformed by a wicked fairy into that form and sent into exile because he would not marry her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The girl helps him escape from his punishment, but only after he promises to marry her at once and take her back home with him. While all of these may seem like modern retellings at first glance, they\u2019re much older: They were all written in the 19th century\u2014between 1812 and 1861. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most famous retelling of Little Red Riding Hood is probably Charles Perrault\u2019s<\/a> version, published in 1697 in his book \u201cHistoires ou Contes du temps pass\u00e9, Avec des moralit\u00e9s\u201d (literally: Stories or tales of ancient times with morals). It\u2019s this version that influenced many later adaptations of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n