Sur LaLune Fairytales: Red Riding Hood/Perrault http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/ridin...
Aesop's Fables: The Ass in the Lion Skin http://www.pacificnet.net/~johnr/cgi/aes... The Frog and the Ox http://www.pacificnet.net/~johnr/cgi/aes... The Tortoise and the Eagle http://www.pacificnet.net/~johnr/cgi/aes...
The story became immediately popular and jumped the Channel to be included in children's collections in the 18th century, appearing in A Pretty Book for Children and An Easy Guide for the English Tongue in 1784.
When the story appears by Grimm in 1812, it is substantially different. It is written with more melodrama and symbolism that lends itself to a wide array of interpretation. The girl survives; the wolf gets killed and there is a happily-ever-after ending. Nineteenth Romanticism and Victorianism manipulated the story further to make heavy-handed moralizing for children, casting LRRH as an innocent, hapless girl who is deceived by a sly, vicious beast preying on innocent, naive girls entering puberty. With such a theme, there is much interpretation and criticism emphasizing sexual issues within the possible symbols of the story.
U of Southern Mississippi: Momberger version 1856 http://www-dept.usm.edu/~engdept/lrrh/lr... Father Tuck's Little Folks version 1890 http://www-dept.usm.edu/~engdept/lrrh/lr...
Ashlimann: Little Red Riding Hood Grimm http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0333.html#...
The story has suffered from moralists at both extremes; not only those eager to declaim it as chauvinistic propaganda for women's subordinate role in society, but also for abstinence—not of sex, but wine. Two Californian schools banned the story because LRRH was asked to carry a basket containg wine to her granny. The prohibition is ridiculous as California is internationally known for alcohol, drugs and violence; not to mention that it is a major player in the internatioal wine industry. Perhaps the schools shouls also ban Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, becasue the word "grapes" appear in the title. Or better still, California should ban the wine industry altoghether.
University of Penn Books Online Special Collection Banned Books http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/b... see Unfit for Schools and Minors banned 1989
Politically controversial LRRH has been used for Nazi propaganda and probably religious satire as early oral versions present a story that closely resembles a Baba Yaga tale in which LRRH wears a red hat and partakes in a cannibalistic feast. Little imagination is required to recognize the red hat of a cardinal and the elements of the eucharist in the bones and blood of granny.
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