Ek het ‘n studie gemaak van Rooikappie en die Wolf. Dit het als so begin: Sodra ons terug by die skool is na die lockdown – volgende week 8 Maart – is ons opdrag gegee om in elke jaargroep ‘n tradisionele storie te neem en ‘iets anders’ daarmee te doen. Vir ons jaargroep is Rooikappie gegee en ons gaan die kinders kry om hul storie te skryf vanaf ‘n ander karakter se oogpunt hulle kan kies: die wolf, Rooikappie, die Ouma of die houtkapper. Dit is ‘n lekker manier om dit so bietjie ‘fun’ te maak en dis altyd interessant om te sien waarmee die kinders na vore kom. In my rondsoeke na idees om my voorbereiding te doen, het ek afgekom op verskeie interessante artikels en geskiedenis wat my gelei het na meer ‘n studie as om aan beplanning te werk – alhoewel die beplanning ook op die ou end darem gedoen is! Ek was taamlik erg geskok om te sien wat oorspronklik deel was van hierdie ‘onskuldige’ storie! Sien die aangehaalde gedeeltes in blou.
Ek het onder andere op die dokument van die Britse hoofbiblioteek afgekom en ek het die PDF dokument hier ook opgelaai in die inskrywing vir jou om af te laai en self deur te lees. Ek het hier ‘n gedeelte aangehaal. Ook met die lees van artikels, het ek op ‘n blog van ‘n Onderwyseres afgekom waar sy 25 variasies van Rooikappie het! Ek het ook uitgevind dat daar nie minder as 85 variasies bestaan! Dis net ongelooflik hoeveel studie daar rondom die storie gemaak is. In die volgende afbeelding kan die oorsprong van soortgelyke stories gesien word. Ek het die artikels baie interessant gevind en nooit geweet dat daar soveel variasies bestaan nie! Gelukkig is die variasie van Charles Perrault verander – met ‘n gelukkige einde, maar is ook die ‘aaklige’ gedeelte verwyder!
Aanhaling van die dokument hierbo geplaas. Quote from the document by the British Library – the PDF in this entry for you to download and to read in your own time.
Charles Perrault’s tale of Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding-Hood) first appears with four other stories in a manuscript Contes de ma Mère l’Oye, which was offered to Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans, the niece of King Louis XIV, in 1695.
According to Marie Françoise Quignard, Charles Perrault rewrote tales which had been transcribed from the stories of nurses and old women by his son Pierre Perrault d’Armancour. Charles had the tales beautifully written out, and illustrated them himself with little gouache paintings at the head of each story, but signed the dedicatory letter with his son’s name in order to obtain him a post as secretary to Elisabeth Charlotte. The manuscript is now in the Pierpont
Morgan Library in New York. The tales were intended to be read aloud, as the introduction refers to ‘those who listen’ to the tales. There are corrections to the manuscript, possibly by Perrault, and, in the story of Red Riding-Hood, beside the last reply of the wolf that his big teeth are ‘to eat you with’, a note says that these words should be spoken in a loud voice in order to frighten the listening child.
Three more stories were added to the first printed edition Histoires ou contes du temps passé published in 1697 by Claude Barbin. Le Petit Chaperon rouge is the shortest story in the collection. The heroine is a little girl who is idolized by her mother and grandmother; the latter making a little ‘chaperon’ for her to wear. The Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française of 1694 defines chaperon as a padded medieval bonnet, and also as a strip of cloth, in velvet, satin or camelot (a material which was a mixture of goat hair, wool and silk), worn by girls and women who were not of the nobility, ‘not long ago’. It was therefore mainly ornamental and quite small, very different from the enveloping capes shown in most English language
illustrations of the story. The painted illustration (which is coloured) in the 1695 manuscript shows Red Riding-Hood in bed about to be eaten by the wolf, who is emerging from the curtains at the back of the bed. Red Riding-Hood wears a strip of red cloth laid over her head from her forehead back over her hair as far as her neck. In the first printed edition the engraved line drawing by Antoine Clouzier is not an exact copy of the painting. The image
is reversed (by the printing process) and one can see more clearly that the wolf is beneath the covers of the bed, as described in the story. The little piece of cloth on the heroine’s head is just visible. Speculation that this is a picture of Grandmother, because the wolf has no clothes on, is belied by the presence of the red headdress in the original picture 3 Perrault does not describe the wolf putting on Grandmother’s clothes, but he does mention that she is ‘en son déshabillé’, implying a nightdress or shift. Perrault has not shown this, perhaps for the sake of a clearer image; one can excuse him on the grounds that the wolf was
‘showing his true nature’.
The Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française also explains that an older woman who wore this type of headdress was known as a Grand chaperon, a woman who accompanied young girls, whom we would now call a chaperone. In the eighteenth century a riding-hood or capuchin. was a large, soft hood with a deep cape attached, faced with a coloured lining, worn by all
classes, and not just for riding. It was generally black with a bright lining.4 This is the garment usually depicted in illustrations, but of course red and not black. So perhaps Robert Samber, who first translated the stories of Perrault into English in 1764, thought that a chaperon translated as a ‘capuchin’, the alternative name for a riding-hood. The rolling r’s of ‘Red Riding-Hood’ certainly sounded well.
Perrault tells all his Contes very economically, in a precise, polished style. Le Petit Chaperon rouge is as brutal as the original version of Cinderella. The little girl meets the wolf in the forest, and asks where she is going. On hearing that she is to visit her grandmother, he runs ahead and eats the old lady, and then takes her place in bed. When Red Riding-Hood arrives, he pretends to be the old lady, and the little girl assumes that his gruff voice is due to a cold. He tells the little girl to undress and lie down beside him, a detail which is expurgated in later
versions. Then follows the famous exchange of comments on the size of his arms, legs, ears, eyes, and finally teeth. Giving the terrible reply that his big teeth are to eat her with, he promptly gobbles her up. End of story, with no rescue. The verse moral explains that young ladies should be on their guard against human wolves. And the most dangerous sort of human wolves are pleasant and gentle, and follow girls into houses and alleys.
In 1729 an English translation of Perrault’s stories by Robert Samber was published by J. Pote and R. Montague as Histories or Tales of Past Times. Samber translates Perrault’s text exactly; the wolf eats up Red Riding-Hood. The only addition is that he calls the little girl Biddy, and the wolf Gossop Wolfe, a name which in a later anonymous version turns into Gossip Wolf. Samber makes Red Riding-Hood his first story, whereas Perrault begins with La Belle au bois dormant, and Le Petit Chaperon rouge is second. The illustrations in Samber’s translation, which are copperplate engravings, copy those by Clouzier in the first French edition.
The German Romantic writer Ludwig Tieck, who wrote a number of fairy tales,
published a dramatic poem in 1800 about Red Riding-Hood, Leben und Tod des kleinen Rotkäppchens. An English translation of this was published in 1851 by Groombridge and Sons: The Life and Death of Little Red Riding-Hood, a tragedy, by Jane Browning Smith, illustrated by John Mulready. See this link: https://books.google.co.uk/books id=jfcIAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Tieck introduces extra characters, both human and animal.
Red Riding-Hood and her friend Jenny blow dandelions to see how long they will live. Red Riding-Hood’s seeds blow away instantly, indicating a short life. A dog has a philosophical dialogue with the wolf about the advantages of being a servant and protector of man, or a free agent and his enemy. The wolf hates man because his mate was killed by peasants, and he was ill-treated and hunted. The wolf kills Red Riding-Hood, and is shot by a huntsman, but too late to save her, and two robins mourn her fate (fig. 3).
In their version, Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm provide a happy ending. After the wolf has eaten grandmother and the child, a hunter enters the house and cuts open the wolf, releasing them both. The child fetches stones to fill the wolf ’s stomach, and he dies. The Grimms also provide an alternative ending in which Red Riding-Hood is alarmed by the wolf ’s fierce expression, and runs to her grandmother’s house. They shut the door to keep the wolf out.
He waits on the roof, until grandmother fills a trough with the water in which she has cooked sausages, and the wolf, tempted down by the smell, falls in the trough and drowns.
Chessalee 