Red Cap

The view of London from Parliament Hill is impressive. Hampstead Heath is a huge park, but this spot is my favorite part, which is why I encouraged the girls to picnic here.

A picnic was Thalia and Jini’s idea. They are back in school, and summer is almost over. The planning started Friday night with Jini sleeping over, and the girls took over the kitchen.

The menu was not entirely to my liking. In consideration of Jini, Thalia warned me of Hindu dietary restrictions. No Scotch eggs, pork pies, or sausage rolls, and I had to shop for non-rennet cheeses. I did find Gouda and Brie that fit the bill.

However, the girls did not fall back on store-bought but rather made cucumber sandwiches, potato salad, squares of flapjacks, and lemon-curd tarts as a dessert. They also mixed up some blackcurrant Ribena. I brewed up a thermos of tea for myself.

This morning, we took the overground to South End Green and had a pleasant walk up Parliament Hill. I got to carry the basket. Well, they did all the other work.

Now that we are sated, though Jini is still nibbling on a tart, Thalia pulls her copy of Grimm out of the wicker basket.

“Little Red Cap,” she announces to her audience. “This is one I have overlooked because I already knew the Little Red Riding Hood story, but Grimm gives us two versions mashed up into one.”

A little maiden is taking wine and cake to her ill grandmother, who had once given her a red velvet cap, which the girl always wore, and it became her name.

On her way through the woods, she meets a wolf, who, though charming, has ill intent. He tricks her into revealing where she is going, how to get there, and why, then tempts her to stray from the path—against her mother’s warning—to pick flowers for her grandmother. Meanwhile, he travels on to the poor old woman’s house. Pretending to be Little Red Cap, he gains entrance and devours his victim.

Now disguised, he waits for the girl to mistake him for her kin. Soon, the famous encounter takes place.

“Oh, Grandmother, what big ears you have!”

“All the better to hear you with.”

“Oh, Grandmother, what big hands you have!”

“All the better to grab you with.”

“Oh, Grandmother, what a terribly big mouth you have!”

“All the better to eat you with!”

She is swallowed down as quickly as her grandmother, after which the wolf decides to take a nap.

His loud snoring, emanating from the old woman’s house, attracts the attention of a passing huntsman. He recognizes the wolf and assesses the situation. With scissors, he cuts open the wolf’s belly, releases the two females, and replaces them with stones. When the wolf wakes up, he tries to escape, but the weight of the stones causes him to fall down dead.

The huntsman skins the wolf as payment, and the grandmother eats the cake, drinks the wine, and returns to health. Little Red Cap learns not to stray from the path.

Later on, when Little Red Cap is once again taking baked goods to her grandmother, she meets with another wolf who tries the same tricks to lure her from the path. She goes directly to her destination and warns that there is a wolf following her. They lock the door before the wolf tries to wheedle his way in. Eventually, he jumps onto the roof to wait until evening, when Little Red Cap might try to go home through the dark forest.

Instead, Grandmother instructs her grandchild to add water to the large trough outside her door with which she had used to boil sausages. The smell entices the wolf to the edge of the roof, and he falls into the trough and drowns.

Little Red Cap returns home in safety.

Jini looks puzzled. “That’s not the version my parents read to me.”

Part Two

Little Golden Hood?

“What version did you hear?” Thalia closes her Grimm tome and puts it back into the wicker basket.

“Well,” says Jini, “for one thing, it was called The True History of Little Golden Hood and starts out by saying Little Red Riding Hood is not the true tale, so I never bothered with it.”

“Perhaps you were a little too trusting,” I suggest.

“How does the Golden Hoodstory go?” Thalia wants to know.

Jini’s eyebrows furrow. “Her real name was Blanchette, but was called Little Golden Hood because of a special, protective gift from her grandmother, known as a witch.

“One day, her mother sent her to the grandmother’s house with a piece of cake as a Sunday treat, with the instruction not to talk to strangers. She, of course, ended up talking to a wolf. The wolf decided not to eat her there and then because of the woodcutters nearby. He found out where she was going and why, then suggested he would go on ahead and let her grandmother know she was coming.

“Blanchette dawdled about, picking flowers, watching birds and butterflies, as the wolf raced on ahead. When he arrived, there was nobody there. The grandmother had gone off to market to sell her vegetables.

“The wolf drew the curtains, put on night clothing, and covered himself up in bed. When Blanchette appeared, her apparent grandmother’s low voice and the fact that she was in bed meant she had a cold. ‘Grandmother’ enticed Little Golden Hood into coming to bed with her to rest a little.

“Then the ‘Oh Grandmother, what . . .’ stuff happened, and the wolf tried to eat her, but the golden Hood was enchanted—the old woman was a witch after all—and it burnt his mouth and tongue when he tried to bite off her head.

“Just then, the grandmother returned with an empty sack, having sold her vegetables, trapped the howling, burnt wolf in it, and threw him down a well, declaring she would make a muff from his skin for Little Golden Hood and feed his carcass to the dogs.

“Blanchette had to put up with a scolding from her mother for talking to a stranger, but she was forgiven.”

Thalia smiles. “Gotta love the grandmother. No victim, she.”

Jini nods in agreement.

“I am familiar with Little Golden Hood,” I say. “It was written in rebuttal to Charles Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood.”

Both Thalia and Jini cock their heads.

“What’s wrong with Perrault’s version?” Thalia asks.

“Well, Perrault’s version comes before the Grimms collected their two versions from the Hassenpflug sisters—there being a marital relationship with the Grimms—one from Jeanette and the other from Marie Hassenpflug, and as Thalia said, mashed them up together.

“Jeanette’s version is clearly drawn from Perrault, except in Perrault’s there is no huntsman.”

Jini blinks repeatedly. “How are they saved?”

“They aren’t,” I answer.

“What?” the girls chorus.

“Well,” I say, “there are a couple of points to make here. First, the author is French. The French are no strangers to things uncomfortable. Second, Perrault was writing for the French court and had a moral in mind. Third, the moral was about young girls being deceived by charming, quiet, polite, and sweet ‘wolves,’ who are the most dangerous ones of all. I can’t help but think he had a few incidents in mind. The court, as I understand it, was given to gossip. This story would have had his fellows nodding in acknowledgment.”

Thalia and Jini wag their heads in reluctant agreement.

Part Three

Another Version

“I’m going to stick with Golden Hood,” Jini declares. “It at least makes sense.”

“How so?” Thalia pours herself some more blackcurrant Ribena.

“How so?” Jini echoes. “You have a wolf swallow down two humans whole with nary a bite. The physics of that is daunting. How big can his stomach be?”

“Oh, OK, maybe,” Thalia vacillates.

“Maybe? Listen, next the huntsman comes in and cuts open the wolf’s belly, lets out Granny and Little Red, replaces them with stones, and the wolf sleeps through all of that?”

“OK, OK, I give up,” Thalia concedes.

I tear my attention away from the scenic view of London. “I have to question the medicinal value of cake and wine, not that I personally object to the idea, but I don’t think it would be supported by the British Medical Association.”

The girls roll their eyes at my attempted humor.

“But seriously, Jini,” I continue, “I don’t feel fairy tales need to obey any of our real-world laws. In both cases of the ‘hoods,’ there is a talking wolf. From the start of each tale, we move beyond what is possible. That the tales need not follow the laws of physics—or at best only loosely—is part of their charm.”

“Yeah!” Thalia raises a fist.

Jini is not convinced. “I still think there should be some sense in nonsense.” Her eyes search around at nothing. “And I’ll pretend I didn’t say that.”

Thalia smirks.

“Thalia,” I say, “hand me your book. There is another Grimm version of Little Red Riding Hood.”

She roots around in the basket and gives it to me. I open it to the table of contents.

“Right, here it is, The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, kids being young goats, you understand.”

I quickly peruse the story.

“Actually, now that I recall, it’s more like halfway between Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs.”

“A mother goat has seven kids, whom she needs to leave at home while she finds food, and warns them against the wolf. A wolf comes to the door, pretending to be the mother, and wants to be let back in, but the little goats tell him he is not their mother because of his gruff voice. The wolf goes away and finds chalk to eat to smooth his voice. But this time, the little goats spot his black paws. The wolf goes off and puts dough and flour on his paws.

This time, he tricks them, gets into the house, and eats six of the kids but can’t find the well-hidden seventh. When the mother comes home, her remaining kid tells her what happened. They go off and spot the wolf sleeping off his meal under a tree. With scissors, she cuts open the wolf and lets out her kids.”

Thalia observes, “Wolves in these stories always swallow their victims whole, don’t they?”
“Gulp, gulp, gulp,” Jini adds with a smile.

“Right,” I say. “The kids gather stones, fill his belly, and Mother sews him back up. When he wakes up, he goes to the well to drink, and the stones roll forward, causing him to fall into the well and drown. The end.”

The girls applaud.

I turn to the notes in the back of the book. “Ah, it too was collected from the Hassenpflug family.”

“Say,” Jini frowns a little, “How many versions are there?”

“Oh, numerous, I am sure, just as with any fairy tale. I can even think of another French version . . . Oh, no, wait. We’re not going to talk about that one.”

The girls look over at me with interest.

Oh, no. We are not going to talk about that one.

Your thoughts?