Reading Notes: Brothers Grimm (Ashliman), Part A

  The story in the first part of this unit that I have chosen to focus my reading notes on is "Little Red Cap."

This story is very obviously a version of Little Red Riding Hood, or Little Red Riding Hood is a version of THIS story: either way I really liked this story so I wanted to focus my notes on it this week.

The story starts off by describing this little girl who everyone likes, especially her grandmother. Her grandmother gave her the red velvet "cap" and it suited her so well and she wore it all the time, so that's how she got the name "Little Red Cap." 

Her grandmother is sick and weak so her mother gives her some wine and a piece of cake to take to her, telling her not to leave the path, to say "Goodmorning," and not to peer into the corners first. She obediently tells her mother she will do just that and she made her way to her grandma's house.

On this journey she encounters a wolf, however, she did not know what wolves were and what they were capable of so she was not scared, and talks to him with ease. She is naive and gives too much detail about where she is going to the wolf. The wolf thinks to himself that he can be sly and eat both Little Red Cap and her grandmother. And with all these details about where her grandmother lives, it shouldn't be too hard to achieve that goal. 

The wolf distracted her, pointing out the beauty of the flowers. She strays off the path to gather flowers for her grandma and the wolf goes directly to her grandma's house. 

The wolf goes to her grandma's house with the wine and cake and the wolf knocks on the door, pretending to be Little Red Cap, telling the grandma that he has cake and wine for her. The grandma tells the wolf (thinking he is Little Red Cap) to come in because she is "too weak to get up." The wolf went in, ate the grandma, and put on her clothes so he could take her place in bed and trick Little Red Cap. 

Little Red Cap finished with the flowers and made her way to grandmothers to find the door wide open. She was scared and she called out "Goodmorning" as her mother told her, but received no answer. She went to the bed and saw the wolf lying there pretending to be the grandmother. A lot of this plays out like the original story: the infamous dialogue between the wolf and the girl, the big ears. big eyes, big hands, big mouth, etc. The wolf jumped out of bed and ate Little Red Cap, then got back in bed and started loudly snoring. 

A huntsman passed by and heard the snoring. He decided to go in and check on what he thought to be the old woman and sees the wolf. He was going to shoot the wolf but then he thinks that the wolf could have eaten the grandma and cuts open his belly to find not only the grandma but Little Red Cap, both alive. Little Red Cap got some stones and filled up the wolf's belly so when he woke up and tried to run away the stones were too heavy and caused him to drop down dead. 

The three were happy and the grandma was able to eat the cake, also Little Red Cap vowed to never leave the path again. 

("Little Red Riding Hood" by Jessie Willcox Smith (1911), Source: Wikimedia)

Bibliography:

"Little Red Cap."

Story source: The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales translated by D. L. Ashliman (1998-2013).

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