Medieval History

This morning, Variety reports that Leonardo DiCaprio has bought the movie rights for Little Red Riding Hood and plans to make it into a “Gothic reimaging” of the fairy tale. It is said that David Leslie Johnson will write the script. What does this have to do with medieval history? Not too much, but I thought this news was a great excuse to research and write about the origins of this popular story.

The most popular version of the story comes from The Brothers Grimm in the 19th century. However, that is far too recent for my tastes, so let’s go back a bit. There were stories circulating around Europe, France, and Italy as early as the 14th century, the most notable being La Finta Nonna (The False Grandmother). However, these early stories have their own uniqueness and differences from Little Red Riding Hood’s current incarnation. The antagonist, for example, can sometimes be an ogre or werewolf rather than an actual wolf, though it isn’t a far stretch of the imagination to link a werewolf to the story. Speaking of werewolves, there is a 16^th-century werewolf trial that some argue is a possible source of our established Little Red Riding Hood tale.

In Catherine Orenstein’s Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked, she links the story to the 1590 rial of Peter Stumpp. Stumpp was accused and put on trial for allegedly being a serial murderer and a cannibal. After much torture, Stumpp confessed to having practiced black magic. He claimed the Devil had given him a magical belt, which enabled him to metamorphose into “the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and mighty paws.” Does any of that sound a little familiar?  Stumpp was also said to have murdered and eaten several children and family members. To this day, the Stumpp trial is known as one of the most lurid and famous werewolf trials in history.

It is also notable that Little Red Riding Hood did not survive in the earliest tellings of her story.

In most of these early story fragments, the girl is eaten by the wolf; however, there are a few instances where she tricks the wolf and escapes.  Local woodcutters didn’t enter into the story until Charles Perrault wrote Le Petit Chaperon Rouge in 1697. Even then, they were not to be the saviors of the innocent girl, but rather an obstacle the wolf must get past in order to get to the grandmother’s house. In these stories, the wolf deceives the “attractive, well-bred young lady” into giving him the directions he needs to avoid the woodcutters and get to her grandma’s house. In Perrault’s story, the girl is eaten by the wolf and the story ends. The moral that Perrault was trying to get across was that nice young ladies should neither listen nor talk to strangers.

Who knows how DiCaprio will depict this story in his new “gothic” film. I can only hope he isn’t jumping on the Twilight / Alice in Wonderland bandwagon. God help me if the wolf in grandmother’s clothing has chiseled abs and an enormous forehead.