"The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids" and "Red Riding Hood". The story of a relationship

Abstract

It has been long argued that there is a relationship between “The Wolf and the Seven Kids” and “Little Red Riding Hood”, especially when considering Grimm Brothers’ versions. We should look for the origins of “The Wolf and the Seven Kids” in a fable included in collections from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The history of “Little Red Riding Hood” is, however, completely different, for it bears no relationship with the genre of the fable and it appears associated, already from Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages, to rituals of feminine initiation. Despite the results from the comparison between the two traditions in the sense that the two tales have different origins, the use of the fable of the wolf and the kid in medieval sermons directed to girls shows that the pedagogic and moral use that Christianism made of all sort of tales probably brought these two tales together already at that time.