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Little Red Riding Hood is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a sly wolf. Its origins can be traced back to several pre-17th-century European folk tales. The two best known versions were written by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. The story has varied considerably in different versions over the centuries, translations, and as the subject of numerous modern adaptations. Other names for the story are "Little Red Cap" or simply "Red Riding Hood". It is number 333 in the Aarne–Thompson classification system for folktales. Plot Original version The story centers around a girl named Little Red Riding Hood, after the red hooded cape that she wears. The girl walks through the woods to deliver food to her sickly grandmother (wine and cake depending on the translation). In the Grimms' version, her mother had ordered her to stay strictly on the path. A stalking wolf wants to eat the girl and the food in the basket. After he enquires as to where she is going, she tells him. He suggests that she pick some flowers as a present for her grandmother, which she does. As she does so, he goes to the grandmother's house and gains entry by pretending to be Riding Hood. He swallows the grandmother whole (or, in some versions, he locks her in the closet) and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandmother. When Little Red Riding Hood arrives, she notices the strange appearance of her "grandmother". She exclaims, "What a deep voice you have!" "The better to greet you with", responds the wolf. "Goodness, what big eyes you have!" "The better to see you with", responds the wolf. "And what big hands you have!" "The better to embrace you with", responds the wolf. "What a big mouth you have!" "The better to eat you with!", he responds, at which point the wolf jumps out of the bed and eats her as well. Then he falls asleep. In Charles Perrault's version of the story, the first to be published, the tale ends here. Later variant In later and better-known versions, the story continues. A woodcutter in the French version, or a hunter in the Brothers Grimm and traditional German versions, comes to the rescue with an axe, and cuts open the sleeping wolf. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge shaken, but unharmed. Then they fill the wolf's body with heavy stones. The wolf awakens and attempts to flee, but the stones cause him to collapse and die. In the Grimms' version, the wolf leaves the house and tries to drink out of a well, but the stones in his stomach cause him to fall in and drown (similarly to the story of "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids"). Sanitized versions of the story have the grandmother locked in the closet rather than being eaten and some have Little Red Riding Hood saved by the lumberjack as the wolf advances on her rather than after she is eaten, where the woodcutter kills or simply chases away the wolf with his axe. History Relationship to other tales The story displays similarities to stories from classical Greece and Rome. Scholar Graham Anderson has compared the story to a local legend recounted by Pausanias in which, each year, a virgin girl was offered to a malevolent spirit dressed in the skin of a wolf, who raped the girl. Then, one year, the boxer Euthymos came along, slew the spirit, and married the girl who had been offered as a sacrifice. There are also a number of different stories recounted by Greek authors involving a woman named Pyrrha (literally "fire") and a man with some name meaning "wolf". The Roman poet Horace alludes to a tale in which a male child is rescued alive from the belly of Lamia, an ogress in classical mythology. The dialogue between the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood has analogies to the Norse Þrymskviða from the Elder Edda; the giant Þrymr had stolen Mjölnir, Thor's hammer, and demanded Freyja as his bride for its return. Instead, the gods dressed Thor as a bride and sent him. When the giants note Thor's unladylike eyes, eating, and drinking, Loki explains them as Freyja's not having slept, eaten, or drunk, out of longing for the wedding. A parallel to another Norse myth, the chase and eventual murder of the sun goddess by the wolf Sköll, has also been drawn. A similar story also belongs to the North African tradition, namely in Kabylia, where a number of versions are attested. The theme of the little girl who visits her (grand)dad in his cabin and is recognized by the sound of her bracelets constitutes the refrain of a well-known song by the modern singer Idir, "A Vava Inouva": The theme of the ravening wolf and of the creature released unharmed from its belly is also reflected in the Russian tale Peter and the Wolf and another Grimm tale The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, but its general theme of restoration is at least as old as the biblical story, Jonah and the Whale. The theme also appears in the story of the life of Saint Margaret, wherein the saint emerges unharmed from the belly of a dragon, and in the epic "The Red Path" by Jim C. Hines. A Taiwanese story from the 16th century, known as Aunt Tiger bears several striking similarities. In this story there are two girls who are sisters. When the girls' mother goes out, the tigress comes to the girls' house and pretends to be their aunt, asking to come in. One girl says that the aunt's voice does not sound right, so the tigress attempts to disguise her voice. Then, the girl says that the aunt's hands feel too coarse, so the tigress attempts to make her paws smoother. When finally the tigress gains entry, she eats the girl's sister. The girl comes up with a ruse to go outside and fetch some food for her aunt. Aunt Tiger, suspicious of the girl, ties a rope to her leg. The girl ties a bucket to the rope to fool her, but Aunt Tiger realizes this and chases after her, whereupon she climbs into a tree. The girl tells the tigress that she will let her eat her, but first, she would like to feed her some fruit from the tree. The tigress comes closer to eat the fruit, whereupon the girl pours boiling hot oil down her throat, killing her. According to Paul Delarue, a similar narrative is found in East Asian stories, namely, in China, Korea and Japan, with the title "The Tiger and the Children". Earliest versions The origins of the Little Red Riding Hood story can be traced to several likely pre-17th century versions from various European countries. Some of these are significantly different from the currently known, Grimms-inspired version. It was told by French peasants in the 10th century and recorded by the cathedral schoolmaster Egbert of Liège. A fifteenth-century collection of folklore described an anecdote about a woman whose husband was a werewolf though it bares little resemblance to Perrault's text. In Italy, Little Red Riding Hood was told by peasants in the fourteenth century, where a number of versions exist, including La finta nonna (The False Grandmother), written among others by Italo Calvino in the Italian Folktales collection. It has also.... Discover the Magic Books Charles Perrault popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Magic Books Charles Perrault books.