Little Red Hood

This is a story which begins well, but ends badly. If you need to find any solace in it, at least know that it is true, a sad true.

Once there was a little girl whose mother gave her red boots, a red cloak, and a magnificent red hood on her twelfth birthday. The little girl loved the presents so much, she told her mother that she was to be known by a new name, "Red Hood." Her mother agreed, and soon, no one could even remember the name the girl had been known by in her childhood.

On her next birthday, Red Hood's mother told her that she was to journey through the forest and meet her grandmother on the other side. Red Hood's grandmother was very old, and about to die. She wanted to tell Red Hood the family secrets before she did.

Red Hood was very sad that her grandmother was dying, but also excited, because she had never been old enough to make the journey alone, and she was looking forward to learning the family secrets.

All the day and all the night before she was to make her journey, Red Hood and her mother cooked food to be taken to her grandmother. They also prepared food for Red Hood to eat along the way, food Red Hood had never before tasted. Her mother taught her the recipes and the songs she sang while cooking each dish.

Early the next morning, while Red Hood was dressing in her red boots, red cloak, and magnificent red hood, her mother came into her room with a small wrapped package. "Here is one last gift for you to wear, now that you are one year older," her mother said. Inside the package was a fur belt, so finely worked that the stitches could not be seen, Red Hood wrapped it around her waist, but saw there was no buckle or hook. "You will tie it with a knot your grandmother will teach you," Red Hood's mother said. "It's a family secret."

Red Hood's mother walked with her to the edge of the wood. "Now stay on the path, dear; and go straight to your grandmother's house." Red Hood entered the wood with a high heart. It was a spring day, and every living thing in the forest was rejoicing with new life. She could feel beneath her feet the pressing up of the season's sprouting, blooming, flowing. All along the path daffodils, irises, and other rare flowers bloomed for her.

Red Hood thought that she would pick a bouquet for her grandmother of all the best flowers of the forest. She bent to pick the best iris growing on the path, but saw one even more beautiful a few feet away. She stepped off the path before she realized she was disobeying her mother, and of course, there were even more beautiful irises, and daffodils, and rare flowers, growing ever more and more further from the path. Soon she was lost, but she never noticed. The spring sun streamed through the trees, and she was surrounded by the most beautiful blossoms she had ever seen. As she bent to finally pick one the fairest one, she heard a soft breath behind her. She turned, and looked into the eyes of an enormous wolf."

Hello," the wolf said. "Are you about to pick the flower?" "Yes, if I may," Red Hood said. "I am taking a bouquet to my grandmother, who is sick." Your grandmother is sick? How sick?" "My mother said she is about to die." "Is your grandmother the woman who lives at the end of the path beyond the wood?" "Yes, that is where my grandmother lives.""

You may take her a bouquet of flowers, but you must tell me the answer the three riddles. If I knew the answer to these riddles, I would be freed from these woods, and able to run free across the prairie with my sisters again."

"I will try to answer the riddles," Red Hood said.

"What is invisible, yet contains all thought? What is at the end of the circle? What gives fire smoke, water foam, and stone the wings of angels?"

Red Hood sat down so she could think better. She stood up and put her hands on her head so she could think better. She danced a little dance around the clearing so she wouldn't think too hard and forget the question.

"Air," she said finally. "We cannot see air, yet it is the ether on which our thoughts flow from one mind to the other. It is the element at the beginning, and therefore the end, of the circle. Air is in the fire, in the sea foam, and in dust everywhere.

"Yes," said the wolf, "I'm sure that's correct. Can you guess the second riddle? Whose touch is the softest, yet wears away stone? Who is like blood and like the sea? Who tells the truth of the heart, and fills dreams with mystery?"

"Water. I know that because blood and sea water are the same. My mother told me. So of course water wears stone, even though it is the softest thing. Water is like love which is the truth of the heart. And the sea is where dreams live, which are always mysterious."

"Oh course, that was easy. But what about this?

The tree becomes the sun again.

Hides in the stone, flies in the air.

Ends water. Water ends it."

?Since the rest of the riddles answers are elements. This must be fire, because fire burns the log to light, and sunlight made the tree. Stones like coal have fire in them, but fire must have air. And fire turns water to steam, but also water can put out a fire. Why couldn't you know these riddles? My mother taught me these things long ago. Didn't your mother teach you?"

The wolf smiled a little smile and said, "My mother was killed by hunters before she could teach me. Thank you freeing me from this forest. If we meet again, we will remember this day. The path is just on the other side of the clearing, there. Now mind that you don't stray from the path.?

Red Hood quickly walked past the wolf, and happy that she was able to return to her journey so easily. She knew of stories where the riddles weren?t so easy, and unsolved at great peril.

Although she had answered the wolf?s riddles, she kept them in her head, and asked herself the riddles over and over. Thus she occupied her thoughts, she sat down on the path and ate some of the food her mother had made her. Then she continued on the path until at last she arrived at her grandmother's house.

She knocked on the door. "Come in," her grandmother said. But it did not sound like her grandmother's voice. Red Hood entered the house and put the basket of food she and her mother had made on the table. She peered in to her grandmother's dark sleeping chamber. "Grandmother, are you all right?" "Yes, dear, but I'm hungry. Please bring in some of the food you and your mother made me."

Red Hood opened the basket, unwrapped each package, and arranged it all on a beautiful platter. She brought it in to her grandmother's chamber.

But as she drew close, she saw that it was not her grandmother there in the bed, but the wolf, dressed in her grandmother's clothing. "Grandmother, what big eyes you have?" "All the better to see you with my darling." "And grandmother, what big ears you have," "All the better to hear you with my darling." "And grandmother, what long fur you have." "All the better to stay warm while I wait for your visit, my darling." "And Grandmother, what big teeth you have." "All the better to eat this delicious food you brought me, my darling." And with that, Red Hood's grandmother set to eating the special food Red Hood and her mother had prepared for her.

"Grandmother," Red Hood asked, when she had finished, "Why are you today a wolf, and when I have seen you before, you were a woman?"

"Today you learn the family secrets, my child."

"Why could I not learn the family secrets before? Why did I have to come to your house?"

"You had to take the journey yourself. You must know that by now. And you had to know the riddles. Which of course you did. Girls in our family always know the riddles. We are well trained. There is just one riddle remaining, and then, I will tell you the secret of our family."

"Will you show me how to tie the knot in my new belt?"

"Yes, of course. But don't rush on ahead. Let me tell the story in my own time. My time is grandmother time, and grandmother time is stronger than little girl time, you know." She smiled as she said this, and Red Hood knew she was teasing her. Oh, how she would miss her grandmother when she died.

"This is the last riddle: Rivers are blood, clouds are lungs, volcanoes are heart. Dust we are and dust we shall return."

"Earth!"

"Of course, earth is the last answer. It is always the last answer to everything."

Red Hood's grandmother got off the bed and took her out into the outer room, which was bare of furniture. The walls were painted with trees and flowers, grass, and sunlight, and as Red Hood looked, they looked less and less like painted walls and more and more like the forest. The ceiling was dark blue, like the twilight sky, and the floor was warm and dark. The wolf that was Red Hood's grandmother was almost as tall as she, at the shoulder, and Red Hood was happy to be standing beside her.

"Stand there in the center of the room," Red Hood's grandmother said. "Hold the belt in your two human hands and..."

At that moment, there was a pounding on the door. "Don't worry, I am arrived," they heard a man's voice shout. "Be silent" Red Hood's grandmother said. The pounding continued, and the door splintered and broke. A man burst into the room, saw the giant wolf, and hurled his sword into her belly. Then her took his knife, and slit Red Hood's grandmother's throat before Red Hood could move from the spot. Blood spouted out and covered Red Hood's body. It dripped awful drops on the floor.

"I have saved you," the man said. "I saw that a wolf was roaming in the woods today, and I followed you to this house. Is the old woman safe?"

Red Hood, paralyzed with horror could not speak. "I am too late then," said the hunter. "Such is my grief. She was a blessed, blessed woman. She is now with God." But you, you live," said the hunter, noticing Red Hood's young beauty. "The wolf did not harm you? You know, a wolf this big probably belongs to the devil himself. I will take its fur and make you a great cloak, better than the red cloak you wear now, and it will keep you safe from harm."

Red Hood still could not speak, and did not speak again. She was afraid that if she spoke one word, she could not stop speaking, and would tell the secrets of her family. When she would not tell him were she lived, he took her to his own village, and the far side of the hills beyond her own forest.

Of course, the hunter told everyone in his village that Red Hood had lain with him on their journey back to his country, and so she was married him. Everyone called her Wolf Grey, because of the cloak she wore and never removed.

In a few months, her monthly bloods stopped, and she knew she would bear a child of her own, although she was still a child herself, and without her mother to consul her. One night in the ninth month, just as the first waves of birthing power came over her, she stole into the hunter's bed and slit his throat.

She ran to the hills outside the village, and birthed her baby into the dry leaves. The next day, she wrapped herself and the baby in the wolf cloak made from her grandmother's skin, and began the long journey back to her own land.

She passed the place where her grandmother had lived, but the cottage had been burned. She went through the forest, now bitter cold and dead with winter. She came to her mother's house, but her mother was gone. Another family was living in the house, and they did not recognize her. They lied and said the house had been in their family for generations.

Red Hood journeyed on to the next village, where a kindly parson took her and her babe in, such was their distress. By her next birthday, she was the cook for the parson, and for many years supported herself and her daughter honorably, though through hard work. She never spoke a word to anyone, until tonight, when she told you this story, and gave you this belt, saying, "I never learned the knot, and you and I will never know our true family secret. But tomorrow, I will teach you to cook our recipes.