Like most of our modern fairy tales, Little Red Riding Hood has been recreated to be an appropriate bedtime story for our youth. But the original story is far more grim than you would have imagined, which is no surprise when you look at the other original stories in Charles Perrault’s Mother Goose Tales. Some sources say that Perrault was not the author, but rather the first to write the oral legend down. Others say the story could be a result of the “werewolf trials” taking place at the time of its origin. Of course, the story has been altered a number of times to fit the manuscript of the ages. Each culture has its own tale of the Little Red Riding Hood, and the most optimistic versions involve a young naive girl who can’t tell the difference in her own grandmother and a wolf in a night bonnet. In these versions, the little girl always escapes in the end, but this isn’t quite how the story goes.
In the original, much more gruesome versions of the story, the wolf is quite horrid. He arrives early at the scene, slaughters grandma, and prepares her body to wait for the little girl in the red hood. He dices her flesh and sets it upon a silver platter. He drains her blood into a wine bottle, placing both the “wine” and the meat into the cupboard. Once the young girl arrives, he orders her to strip, throw her clothes (apron, stockings, petticoat and all) into the fire, and climb into bed with him. At this point, she notices something isn’t quite right with Grandma, but she is apparently none the wiser because she carries on conversation with the wolf while he enjoys Grandma’s bread and milk.
Eventually Little Red Riding Hood is hungry, to which the wolf commands that she feed herself the meat and wine from the cupboard. Little does she know that she is dining on the own flesh and blood of her unfortunate grandmother. The girl doesn’t complain, though, and in some versions even remarks that it is a marvelous feast.
In most versions of the story, Little Red Riding Hood never discovers the wolf’s true identity, and eventually is gobbled up alongside her grandmothers remains. However, one version does end in the little girl outsmarting the wolf. She tells the wolf she must go poop, and needs to relieve herself in the woods. The wolf ties a string to her so she cannot escape, but she slips it over a branch and carries on her way.
As you can see, there are many reasons that the story has been changed so many times. What a fright it must have been for 17th century kids to hear the tales cannibalism and an imposter wolf that gobbles up children!
The new age story may be designed for the fainthearted, but if you are looking for a real thrill this Halloween, grab your haunted house tickets for one of the scariest haunted houses in Dallas area. We might not have a wolf in grandma’s clothing, but at Thrillvania Haunted House Park, we have a few sights that will scare your stockings off, too!