there is no woodcutter in my version of the story.

subtitle: a wolf ate my small scarf.

The story of Red Riding Hood has always disturbed me.  Sometimes I almost forget about it, but then like a pebble in my shoe, in time it works its way round to a tender part where it rubs and hurts and irritates me.  Lately, it's been back, burning a hole in my brain.  That sweet little girl, betrayed by not one but *two* female family members.  Maybe it's because I have a 5 year old now, but the very idea of sending her into the *woods*... ugh.  And why is that sick  old lady living alone in the forest?  Why isn't her daughter looking after her?  Did filial responsibility skip a generation in this family?

Until I retell this story, it only exists for me out there in the familiar form, to make me sad every time I think about it.  Whenever it gets back under my skin, I lay awake at night thinking about her.  Don't send her.  Don't go.

 

Wolves, to me, always stand for the bone-warping forces of physical transformation to which we are all prey.  Part of the life cycle, part of us, feared but essential.  Puberty, to me, is the werewolf, transforming cuddly human puppies into bony, bleeding, snarling monsters- suddenly subject to the irresistable commands of the moon,  the inner tides.  Menarche, pregnancy, birth.  Have you ever felt your bones move out of the way as a new baby enters the outside world?  These are powerful forces.  Ever felt someone was threatening your baby?  Motherhood is a wild and scary place.  Menopause, croning.  The thinning, the bending the drying, the greying.  Once the wolf drops us from her jaws, we are nothing like the creature who entered the dark wood  with her basket of goodies as a little girl.  Not physically, not in any other way.

In my story, Red Riding Hood and the wolf stalk one another through the dark forest.  The wolf consumes grandma, and when Red Riding Hood is herself willingly consumed, the wolf becomes her chrysalys.  There is no woodcutter in my story.

When she is ripe, Red Riding Hood bursts from her wolfish cocoon.  She is powerful,  magical, terrifying, a being at the height of her powers, an adult woman.

 

Does she ever go back to her mother's house?  Does she send her daughter into the wood alone, when her time comes?  Do any of us get any choice in that?

Happy belated Mothers Day, women.