Fiumara
—  Comune  —
Comune di Fiumara
Fiumara Location of Fiumara in Italy
Coordinates: 38°13′N 15°42′E / 38.217°N 15.7°E / 38.217; 15.7Coordinates: 38°13′N 15°42′E / 38.217°N 15.7°E / 38.217; 15.7
Country	Italy
Region	Calabria
Province	Province of Reggio Calabria (RC)
Area
• Total	6.9 km2 (2.7 sq mi)
Population (Dec. 2004)[1]
• Total	1,158
• Density	170/km2 (430/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	89050
Dialing code	0965

Fiumara is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Reggio Calabria in the Italian region Calabria, located about 110 km southwest of Catanzaro and about 12 km northeast of Reggio Calabria. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 1,158 and an area of 6.9 km².^[1]

Fiumara borders the following municipalities: Calanna, Campo Calabro, Reggio Calabria, San Roberto, Scilla, Villa San Giovanni.

Demographic evolution[link]

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References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b} All demographics and other statistics from the Italian statistical institute (Istat)

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Alexis Valoran Reich (born December 11, 1964) is an American trans woman formerly known as John Mark Karr who in 2006 falsely confessed to the unsolved murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey.^[1][2] She has, on other occasions, faced a number of other criminal charges.

Childhood[link]

Reich was born in Conyers, Georgia^[3] and spent her early childhood in Atlanta.^[4] Her father, Wexford Karr had married Patricia Elaine Adcock (John's mother) on August 21, 1958, when he was 37 and she was 18. Wexford filed for divorce in 1973, saying the marriage was "irretrievably broken," and that Reich and her older brother, Michael, were in his custody. Soon after, Wexford Karr, then 52 years old, married 29-year-old Susan Simpson, his neighbor in the same apartment complex.^[5] His marriage with Simpson ended in divorce six months later.^[4]

A family friend, George McCrary, has said that Reich's mother believed her child was possessed by demons. Reich's mother allegedly built a pyre of kindling around her child then attempted to burn the then infant alive. Adcock was committed to the Central State Hospital, a mental hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia, and later lived in a group home, according to her stepmother Shirley Adcock.^[5][6]

Reich moved to Alabama to live with her grandparents when she was about 12 years old. She grew up in Hamilton^[4] and graduated from Hamilton High School in 1983.^[7][8] Reich returned to live in Atlanta at least twice: once to attend one semester at Riverwood High School in Sandy Springs from January to May 1981, and again some years after graduating from high school.^[4]

Marriages[link]

In 1984, Reich married 13-year-old Quientana Ray Shotts.^[9] Reich evidently told Quientana to lie about her age, and took her out of Alabama, where they both lived, to marry her. Reich and Shotts lived together as a couple in Hamilton after their wedding, and Reich "was abusing her every way there was," according to Melissa Shotts.^[10] Court records show that, in 1985, a 14-year-old girl sought an annulment of what the records call a "ceremonial marriage," saying she had feared for her life when she agreed to marry Reich in 1984. Reich admitted to the court that Shotts was a minor, but disputed Shotts had been 13. The marriage was annulled^[9] in 1985. Shotts later remarried and now bears a different surname.^[11]

Reich married Lara Knutson^[12] in Alabama on May 19, 1989, when Reich was 24 and she was 16 and pregnant. She was carrying twin daughters who were delivered via a home birth on September 1, 1989. The girls, named Angel and Innocence, died later that day. The couple went on to have three boys in close succession, the oldest, John born in 1990, Damon in 1992 and Seven Exodus in 1993.^[13][14] The couple divorced in 2001 following Reich's arrest for five misdemeanor counts of possession of child pornography in Petaluma, California.^[8][15] In the divorce petition, Reich's wife wrote that Reich was never physically violent towards her, but that Reich was "very controlling" of her. A restraining order against Reich was granted.^[13] Knutson said he purposely set out to get her pregnant, telling her the pregnancy would allow them to skirt the law and get married, according to statements she made in divorce records.^[4]

In 2007, Reich became engaged to a 23-year-old woman named Brooke Simmons who had a three-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.^[16]

Career[link]

Reich had been working as a substitute teacher in Petaluma, but Bob Raines, the Superintendent-Principal at Wilson Elementary School in Petaluma said she was an ineffective substitute teacher: "He just seemed like somebody who thought he wanted to be a teacher... After a day, I could see it just wasn't for him."^[17] She worked from December 2000 through June 2001 in as many as 14 schools in the Petaluma, Old Adobe, Liberty and Wilmar elementary districts.^[18] Reich's last paycheck for teaching work in Petaluma was issued in April 2001, the same month that Reich made her first court appearance for the aforementioned pornography charges. When she failed to show up for a readiness conference in December 2001, a judge issued a warrant for Reich's arrest, which was still outstanding as of August 2006.^[15]

In March 1996, Reich registered the domain Powerwurks.com and used it as a cover, claiming on Usenet to be "a world wide support organization for kids, teens and college students." As well as seeking troubled or depressed children, she also solicited discussion on sex.^[19]

Reich also operated a day care center in northwest Alabama. The Marion County Department of Human Resources issued a license for Reich to begin operating a day care out of her home in June 1997. Under the license, Reich was allowed to care for as many as six children at a time, ranging in age up to 14 years old.^[20]

2001 arrest[link]

On April 13, 2001, Reich was arrested for possession of computerized child pornography. She pled not guilty four days later. On October 15, 2001, after a series of court hearings, Reich was released from jail, but was ordered to report to a probation officer. The court records in the case were sealed. In December 2001, Reich failed to appear and a "No Bail" warrant was issued by a Sonoma County Superior Court Judge.^[21] Reich then went on the run, living in Asia, Europe and Central America, until her arrest in Thailand.

Events of 2006[link]

Initial investigation[link]

Authorities were made aware of Reich via e-mails she exchanged over the course of four years with Michael Tracey, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado.

In June 2006, the Boulder District Attorney's office received copies of the suspect's emails from Tracey, who received the emails from a person with the email address "December261996@yahoo.com." December 26, 1996, was the date of JonBenét's murder. At least one of the emails was signed with the signature "Daxis."^[22]

Armed with the email address and Internet service provider, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) determined the general location of the suspect in Thung Maha Mek, a neighborhood in Bangkok, Thailand. At the time, the suspect's name and exact location was not known.^[22]

Discovery of whereabouts[link]

Authorities identified and found Reich when she sent an envelope to Tracey by regular mail with a return address bearing the name of a major thoroughfare in Bangkok, but no number or cross street.^[22] Tracey sent Reich another kind of mail – a photograph delivered to a Thai post office box. Agents arranged a controlled delivery and were ready to spot their suspect. The man who arrived to pick up the mail delivery was using a 21-speed bicycle, the purchase of which was mentioned in e-mails sent by the suspect. The agents followed Reich to her residence and learned her name.^[23]

On August 11, 2006, they notified ICE officials, and from that point on, Reich was placed under surveillance by Thai immigration officials.^[22] A sealed arrest warrant, signed by Boulder County District Judge Roxanne Bailin,^[24] was sent by the Boulder District Attorney's office to officials in Thailand on August 15, 2006. The next day, upon receipt of the warrant, Thai immigration authorities revoked Reich's visa.^[22]

Arrest[link]

Reich was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, on August 16, 2006, by Thai authorities, then released to U.S. agents and flown first to Los Angeles, California,^[25] then to Boulder for further investigation. On August 28, prosecutors announced they had decided not to pursue charges in connection with the murder after DNA tests failed to place Reich at the scene,^[26] although serious doubts had been expressed about the veracity of her admission even before the tests were conducted.^[27] Reich was held in Boulder until September 12, 2006, when she was transported to Sonoma County, California to face unrelated misdemeanor child pornography charges.^[28][29] The charges were dismissed by a California judge on October 5, 2006, and Reich was immediately released.^[30]

Detention in Thailand, deportation to United States[link]

Reich was detained in Bangkok, Thailand, on August 16, 2006. Reich said she was with JonBenét when she died,^[31] and told a press conference that her death was an accident.^[2] She said: "I love JonBenét," and "I was with JonBenét when she died; she died accidentally."^[2] When asked if she was an innocent person, she said: "No."^[27] Thai Immigration Police Lieutenant General Suwat Tumrongsiskul stated that Reich admitted attempting to kidnap JonBenét Ramsey for an $118,000 ransom to be paid by the Ramseys, only to strangle the child after her plan went awry.^[32] While she was detained in Thailand, officials there had Reich on a 24-hour suicide watch.^[33]

Reich returned on a business class flight. She was not handcuffed or under arrest during the flight, ate from a free choice of menu and drank Champagne^[34] on the Thai Airways Airbus 340-500 she took to the United States.^[35] Experts, such as Denver attorney Larry Posner, have speculated that Reich was given the food and drink to get her to start talking about her involvement in the murder of JonBenét:

Reich was escorted by investigators working for the Boulder district attorney.^[37] Reich had been detained in Thailand because her visa had been revoked by request of Boulder County, Colorado, but Reich was released to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to ensure Reich returned to the U.S. Reich was not legally arrested until August 20, 2006, after the airliner touched down at Los Angeles International Airport. She was first admitted into the country, then she was arrested at the airport on a warrant from Boulder County^[24] by the waiting officers of the LA County Sheriff's Department, and taken by helicopter to Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles. Citing Sheriff's Department policy regarding inmates who are "accused child molesters", deputies stated that Reich was held in isolation while she was at the facility.^[38][39]

Extradition to Colorado[link]

On August 22, 2006, Reich waived extradition during a three-minute hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court, clearing the way for her transfer to Boulder.^[40] According to CNN, on the way back to the correctional facility after the extradition hearing, Reich was quoted as telling an officer, "Everybody says I couldn't know my way around the house, but I got in the house around 5 o'clock ... and I stayed there all night."^[41]

On August 24, 2006, Reich was handcuffed and driven by Los Angeles Sheriff's deputies onto the tarmac at the airport in Long Beach, California, where she boarded a State of Colorado twin turboprop airplane.^[42] Reich arrived more than 3 hours later at Jefferson County Municipal Airport in Broomfield, Colorado,^[43] and then was driven to the Boulder County Jail.

Although Reich had been represented by public defenders in Los Angeles and Boulder, two California-based attorneys, Patience van Zandt (who worked with Reich on the 2001 child pornography case) and Jamie Harmon served her in an advisory capacity.^[44] In Boulder, Reich was assisted by Boulder County Public Defender Seth Temin, despite the fact that three dozen lawyers had offered to represent Reich (for free in many cases) against the charges.^[45]

Charges dropped[link]

On August 28, 2006, the Boulder County District Attorney's Office announced "the case of the People vs. John Mark Karr has been vacated."^[46] According to Denver's NBC affiliate, KUSA, the DNA taken from Reich's hair and saliva after her arrest and tested by the Denver Police Department's crime lab did not match the DNA found on JonBenét Ramsey's body; as a result, the District Attorney's Office would not file charges against Reich for the murder. Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy estimated the total public cost of the investigation at about $13,000;^[47] other estimates have put the cost at $30,000.^[48] Colorado Governor Bill Owens said Lacy should be "held responsible for the most expensive DNA test in Colorado history."^[49]

Prior to August 28, George McCrary, a longtime friend of the Karr family, insisted that John Karr is innocent of the murder. "He's a pedophile, not a murderer," said McCrary, who also called John Karr a "genius" whose "confession" was a deliberate tactic to avoid jail in Thailand, and be taken to the United States where she knew she would be found innocent.^[50]

Following Reich's release on August 28, she was quickly rearrested after prosecutors in California indicated that she was to face charges of possessing child pornography.^[51]

Extradition to California[link]

On August 28, 2006, the Sonoma County DA's Office announced their intent to have Reich extradited from Boulder to face the five misdemeanor counts of possessing child pornography that had been filed five years earlier. On September 12, 2006, Reich arrived in Santa Rosa, where she stood by her original plea of not guilty^[52] On September 19, 2006, prosecutors offered Reich a plea bargain in which she would plead guilty to two of the five counts, in exchange for dismissal of the remaining three counts and a sentence of time served in jail and three years probation. Reich would also be required to register in California as a sex offender.^[53] San Francisco based criminal defense attorneys Robert Amparan, Gayle Gutekunst, and Benjamin Prince represented Reich in Sonoma County. Reich turned down the plea bargain offer in the case. On September 25, 2006, however, Judge Cerena Wong agreed to consider a defense motion to dismiss all charges against Reich, in light of the Sonoma County sheriff's department's alleged 2002 junking of a computer believed to contain the pornographic images that are the basis of the prosecution's case. The prosecution maintained that it printed the photos from Reich's computer before it went missing; it is these printed copies that the prosecution planned to introduce as evidence if the case went to trial.^[54]

Charges dropped[link]

On October 5, 2006, all of the child pornography charges against Reich were dropped after investigators lost the computer seized from Reich in April 2001. The Deputy District Attorney Mary Maxiemer was put up on the stand and questioned by defense attorneys. It was determined she withheld information from the Court and she was appointed an attorney. The case was immediately dismissed by the court. She was immediately released from jail per orders from Judge Rene Chouteau.^[55][56]

Later developments[link]

On October 6, 2006 Reich already found herself being questioned again by police when she decided to stop by a school where she used to teach. A limousine carrying Reich and two producers from ABC's Good Morning America was stopped and questioned by police but they determined that no crime was committed.^[57] Reich was apparently giving the producers a tour of the neighborhood where she used to live and work when she suddenly exited the limo and approached the school. According to Jeffrey Schneider, senior vice president of ABC News, "his behavior gave us serious pause, and ABC decided not to proceed with the interview."^[58] Reich was the guest on CNN's Larry King Live on October 16, 2006.^[59]

On October 26, 2006, Reich sent an email to Bill Hammons of Bill's List of Literary Agents and Their Authors' Books from a "phoenix rising" email address and stated that "I seek a literary agent who can help me publish a manuscript that some might find controversial."^[60]

2007 domestic argument arrest[link]

After a long break from being in the media, Reich was again arrested and jailed July 6, 2007 when Reich was involved in a domestic argument at her father's house in suburban Atlanta. The argument was between Reich, Reich's girlfriend and Reich's father. Reich was charged with battery and obstruction. Reich later was released.

Transition[link]

Reich subsequently began to undergo hormone replacement therapy and to transition into a female role in early 2010. She currently lives as a woman.^[61]

References[link]

Wikinews has related news: Man confesses to 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey

Further reading[link]

• Boulder arrest warrant for John Mark Karr, signed and issued by Judge Roxanne Bailin
• Larry King Live transcripts on the John Mark Karr confession.
• Does Karr Believe He Did It? The truth in John Mark Karr's false confession.

Frans Hals' depiction of Mark the Evangelist, usually regarded as the same person as John Mark.

John Mark is a character in the New Testament. According to William Lane, an "unbroken tradition" identifies him with Mark the Evangelist.^[1] John Mark is mentioned several times in the Acts of the Apostles. The first mention is in Acts 12:12, when Peter is coming to his mother's house:

When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying.

John Mark himself appears a bit later in the same chapter, in Acts 12:25, as the travel companion of Saul (Apostle Paul) and Barnabas:

When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark.

John Mark is mentioned soon after the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:37-41. Paul (Saul) does not have a too flattering impression of his former associate, arguing over him with Barnabas in Antioch:

Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

This is apparently the same occurrence that was earlier mentioned in Acts 13:13, this time referring to John Mark simply as "John":

From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem.

This John had joined their mission in Antioch. Acts 13:4-5 says:

The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper.

Ultimately John Mark returned to the ministry. This is evidenced by the instruction to Timothy that he should "Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry." 2 Timothy 4:11

John Mark is also usually identified with Mark the cousin of Barnabas.

References[link]

• Easton's Bible Dictionary, 1897

Pietro Consagra (October 4, 1920 – July 16, 2005) was one of Italy's leading postwar sculptors.

Life[link]

Consagra was born in Mazara del Vallo, a town in western Sicily, on October 4. His father, a traveling salesman, did not register his birth until October 6. Consagra attended the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Palermo. He moved to Rome in 1944, where he studied with the social realist painter Renato Guttuso. Influenced by a trip to Paris, where he saw the studios of Brancusi, Picasso, and Giacometti, he became a founder of the "Forma I" group in 1947. This group championed abstract art at the expense of the dogmatically heroic canvases and sculpture approved by Marxists such as Guttuso. Consagra wrote an essay called "La Necessità della Scultura" (or "The Need for Sculpture") in 1952. It defended the importance of sculpture as a response to the accusation of the artist Arturo Martini that the medium was now a "dead language".

Steadily Consagra's work began to find an audience. Working primarily in metal, and later in marble and wood, his thin, roughly carved reliefs, began to be collected by Peggy Guggenheim and other important patrons of the arts. He showed at the Venice Biennale five times between 1956 and 1972, and in 1960 won the sculpture prize at the exhibition.

During the 1960s he was associated with the Continuità group, an off-shoot of Forma I, and in 1967 taught at the School of Arts in Minneapolis. Large commissions allowed him to begin working on a more monumental scale, and works of his were installed in the courtyard of the Foreign Ministry in Rome and in the European Parliament, Strasbourg. His work is found in the collections of The Tate Gallery, London, and the Museum of Modern Art, Paris, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C..

Consagra returned to Sicily where he sculpted a number of significant works during the 1980s. With Senator Ludovico Corrao, he helped created an open-air museum in the new town of Gibellina, after the older town had been destroyed in the earthquake of 1968. Consagra designed the gates to the town's entrance as well as those to the cemetery, where he was later buried.

A retrospective of Consagra's work was staged at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome in 1989, and two years later he became the first sculptor to show abstract work in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. In 1980, he wrote an autobiography in Italian called Vita Mia or "My Life". He published a book of poetry in 1985 called Ci Penso Amo (ISBN L20000). He also wrote a book on city planning.

References[link]

• Agenzia Giornalista Italia report on Consagra's death
• The Artists.org article on Consagra
• New Orleans Museum of Art article

External links[link]

• Find-A-Grave profile for Pietro Consagra

A depiction by Gustave Doré.

	"Little Red Riding Hood" The version found in The Book of Fables and Folk Stories by Horace E. Scudder.
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Little Red Riding Hood, also known as Little Red Cap, is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. The story has been changed considerably in its history and subject to numerous modern adaptations and readings. The story was first published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé in 1697.^[1]

This story is number 333 in the Aarne-Thompson classification system for folktales.^[2]

Tale[link]

Little Red Riding Hood, illustrated in a 1927 story anthology

The story revolves around a girl called Little Red Riding Hood, after the red hooded cape/cloak (in Perrault's fairytale) or simple cap (in the Grimms' fairytale) she wears. The girl walks through the woods to deliver food to her sick grandmother.

A wolf wants to eat the girl but is afraid to do so in public. He approaches Little Red Riding Hood and she naïvely tells him where she is going. He suggests the girl pick some flowers, which she does. In the meantime, he goes to the grandmother's house and gains entry by pretending to be the girl. He swallows the grandmother whole,(In some stories, he locks her in the closet), and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandma.

When the girl arrives, she notices that her grandmother looks very strange. Little Red Riding Hood then says, "What a deep voice you have,""The better to greet you with," said the wolf."Goodness, what big eyes you have.", said the little girl."The better to see you with.", said the wolf. "And what big hands you have!" exclaimed Little Red Riding Hood, stepping over to the bed. "The better to hug you with," said the wolf. "What a big mouth you have," the little girl murmured in a weak voice. "The better to eat you with!" growled the wolf, and jumping out of bed, he swallowed her up too. Then, with a fat full tummy, he fell fast asleep.

A lumberjack, however, comes to the rescue and with his axe cuts open the wolf, who had fallen asleep. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed. They fill the wolf's body with heavy stones. The wolf awakens and tries to flee, but the stones cause him to collapse and die. (Sanitized versions of the story have the grandmother shut in the closet instead of eaten, and some have Little Red Riding Hood saved by the lumberjack as the wolf advances on her, rather than after she is eaten.)^{[citation needed]}

The tale makes the clearest contrast between the safe world of the village and the dangers of the forest, conventional antitheses that are essentially medieval, though no written versions are as old as that.

Relationship to other tales[link]

The theme of the ravening wolf and of the creature released unharmed from its belly is also reflected in the Russian tale Peter and the Wolf, and the other Grimm tale The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, but its general theme of restoration is at least as old as Jonah and the Whale. The theme also appears in the story of the life of Saint Margaret, where the saint emerges unharmed from the belly of a dragon.

The dialog between the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood has its analogies to the Norse Þrymskviða from the Elder Edda; the giant Þrymr had stolen Mjölner, Thor's hammer, and demanded Freyja as his bride for its return. Instead, the gods dressed Thor as a bride and sent him. When the giants note Thor's unladylike eyes, eating, and drinking, Loki explains them as Freyja not having slept, or eaten, or drunk, out of longing for the wedding.^[3]

"The better to see you with": woodcut by Walter Crane

Tale's history[link]

Earliest versions[link]

The origins of the Little Red Riding Hood story can be traced to versions from various European countries and more than likely preceding the 17th century, of which several exist, some significantly different from the currently known, Grimms-inspired version. It was told by French peasants in the 14th century as well as in Italy, where a number of versions exist, including La finta nonna (The False Grandmother).^[4] It has also been called "The Story of Grandmother". It is also possible that this early tale has roots in very similar Oriental tales (e.g. "Grandaunt Tiger").^[5]

These early variations of the tale differ from the currently known version in several ways. The antagonist is not always a wolf, but sometimes an ogre or a 'bzou' (werewolf), making these tales relevant to the werewolf-trials (similar to witch trials) of the time (e.g. the trial of Peter Stumpp).^[6] The wolf usually leaves the grandmother’s blood and meat for the girl to eat, who then unwittingly cannibalizes her own grandmother. Furthermore, the wolf was also known to ask her to remove her clothing and toss it into the fire.^[7] In some versions, the wolf eats the girl after she gets into bed with him, and the story ends there.^[8] In others, she sees through his disguise and tries to escape, complaining to her "grandmother" that she needs to defecate and would not wish to do so in the bed. The wolf reluctantly lets her go, tied to a piece of string so she does not get away. However, the girl slips the string over something else and runs off.

In these stories she escapes with no help from any male or older female figure, instead using her own cunning. Sometimes, though more rarely, the red hood is even non-existent.^[8]

Charles Perrault[link]

French images, like this 19th-century painting, show the much shorter red chaperon being worn

The earliest known printed version^[9] was known as Le Petit Chaperon Rouge and had its origins in 17th century French folklore. It was included in the collection Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals. Tales of Mother Goose (Histoires et contes du temps passé, avec des moralités. Contes de ma mère l'Oye), in 1697, by Charles Perrault. As the title implies, this version^[10] is both more sinister and more overtly moralized than the later ones. The redness of the hood, which has been given symbolic significance in many interpretations of the tale, was a detail introduced by Perrault.^[11]

The story had as its subject an "attractive, well-bred young lady", a village girl of the country being deceived into giving a wolf she encountered the information he needed to find her grandmother's house successfully and eat the old woman while at the same time avoiding being noticed by woodcutters working in the nearby forest. Then he proceeded to lay a trap for the Red Riding Hood. The latter ends up being asked to climb into the bed before being eaten by the wolf, where the story ends. The wolf emerges the victor of the encounter and there is no happy ending.

Charles Perrault explained the 'moral' at the end so that no doubt is left to his intended meaning:

From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition – neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!

This, the presumed original, version of the tale was written for late 17th century French court of King Louis XIV. This audience, whom the King entertained with extravagant parties and prostitutes, presumably would take from the story the intended meaning.

Brothers Grimm[link]

Wilhelm (left) and Jacob Grimm (right) from an 1855 painting by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann.

In the 19th century two separate German versions were retold to Jacob Grimm and his younger brother Wilhelm Grimm, known as the Brothers Grimm, the first by Jeanette Hassenpflug (1791–1860) and the second by Marie Hassenpflug (1788–1856). The brothers turned the first version to the main body of the story and the second into a sequel of it. The story as Rotkäppchen was included in the first edition of their collection Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales (1812)).^[12]

The earlier parts of the tale agree so closely with Perrault's variant that it is almost certainly the source of the tale.^[13] However, they modified the ending; this version had the little girl and her grandmother saved by a huntsman who was after the wolf's skin; this ending is identical to that in the tale The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, which appears to be the source.^[14]

The second part featured the girl and her grandmother trapping and killing another wolf, this time anticipating his moves based on their experience with the previous one. The girl did not leave the path when the wolf spoke to her, her grandmother locked the door to keep it out, and when the wolf lurked, the grandmother had Little Red Riding Hood put a trough under the chimney and fill it with water that sausages had been cooked in; the smell lured the wolf down, and it drowned.^[15]

The Brothers further revised the story in later editions and it reached the above mentioned final and better known version in the 1857 edition of their work.^[16] It is notably tamer than the older stories which contained darker themes.

After the Grimms[link]

Numerous authors have rewritten or adapted this tale.

Andrew Lang included a variant called "The True History of Little Goldenhood"^[17] in The Red Fairy Book (1890). He derived it from the works of Charles Marelles, in Contes of Charles Marelles. This version explicitly states that the story had been mistold earlier. The girl is saved, but not by the huntsman; when the wolf tries to eat her, its mouth is burned by the golden hood she wears, which is enchanted.

James N. Barker wrote a variation of Little Red Riding Hood in 1827 as an approximately 1000-word story. It was later reprinted in 1858 in a book of collected stories edited by William E Burton, called the Cyclopedia of Wit and Humor. The reprint also features a wood engraving of a clothed wolf on bended knee holding Little Red Riding Hood's hand.

In the 20th century, the popularity of the tale appeared to snowball, with many new versions being written and produced, especially in the wake of Freudian analysis, deconstruction and feminist critical theory. (See "Modern uses and adaptations" below.) This trend has also led to a number of academic texts being written that focus on Little Red Riding Hood, including works by Alan Dundes and Jack Zipes.

Interpretations[link]

Red Riding Hood by George Frederic Watts

Besides the overt warning about talking to strangers, there are many interpretations of the classic fairy tale, many of them sexual.^[18] Some are listed below.

Natural cycles[link]

Folklorists and cultural anthropologists such as P. Saintyves and Edward Burnett Tylor saw "Little Red Riding Hood" in terms of solar myths and other naturally-occurring cycles. Her red hood could represent the bright sun which is ultimately swallowed by the terrible night (the wolf), and the variations in which she is cut out of the wolf's belly represent by it the dawn.^[19] In this interpretation, there is a connection between the wolf of this tale and Sköll, the wolf in Norse myth that will swallow the personified Sun at Ragnarök, or Fenrir.^[20] Alternatively, the tale could be about the season of spring, or the month of May, escaping the winter.^[21]

Ritual[link]

The tale has been interpreted as a puberty ritual, stemming from a prehistorical origin (sometimes an origin stemming from a previous matriarchal era).^[22] The girl, leaving home, enters a liminal state and by going through the acts of the tale, is transformed into an adult woman by the act of coming out of the wolf's belly.^[23]

Rebirth[link]

Bruno Bettelheim, in The Uses of Enchantment, recast the Little Red Riding Hood motif in terms of classic Freudian analysis, that shows how fairy tales educate, support, and liberate the emotions of children. The motif of the huntsman cutting open the wolf, he interpreted as a "rebirth"; the girl who foolishly listened to the wolf has been reborn as a new person.^[24]

Sexual awakening[link]

Red Riding Hood has also been seen as a parable of sexual maturity. In this interpretation, the red cloak symbolizes the blood of menstruation,^[25] braving the "dark forest" of womanhood. Or the cloak could symbolize the hymen (earlier versions of the tale generally do not state that the cloak is red). In this case, the wolf threatens the girl's virginity. The anthropomorphic wolf symbolizes a man, who could be a lover, seducer or sexual predator. This differs from the ritual explanation in that the entry into adulthood is biologically, not socially, determined.^[26]

Norse myth[link]

The poem Þrymskviða from the Poetic Edda mirrors some elements of Red Riding Hood. Loki's explanations for "Freyja's" (actually Thor disguised as Freya) strange behavior mirror the wolf's explanations for his strange appearance.

The red hood has often been given great importance in many interpretations, with a significance from the dawn to blood.^[27]

Modern uses and adaptations[link]

WPA poster by Kenneth Whitley, 1939.

There have been many modern uses and adaptations of Little Red Riding Hood, generally with a mock-serious reversal of Red Riding Hood's naïveté or some twist of social satire; they range across a number of different media and styles. Multiple variations have been written in the past century, in which authors adapt the Grimms' tale to their own interests.

The tale can be told in terms of Little Red Riding Hood's sexual attractiveness. The song "How Could Red Riding Hood (Have Been So Very Good)?" by A.P. Randolph in 1925 was the first song known to be banned from radio because of its sexual suggestiveness. The 1966 hit song "Lil' Red Riding Hood" by Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs takes the Wolf's point of view, implying that he wants love rather than blood. In the short animated cartoon Red Hot Riding Hood by Tex Avery, the story is recast in an adult-oriented urban setting, with the suave, sharp-dressed Wolf howling after the nightclub singer Red. Avery used the same cast and themes in a subsequent series of cartoons.^[28] Allusions to the tale can be more or less overtly sexual, as when the color of a lipstick is advertised as "Riding Hood Red".^[29]

This sexual analysis may take the form of rape. In Against Our Will, Susan Brownmiller described the fairy tale as a description of rape.^[30] Many revisionist retellings depict Little Red Riding Hood or the grandmother successfully defending herself against the wolf, including a version developed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which ends with Little Red Riding Hood cutting her own way out of the wolf's stomach and saving her grandmother.^[31]

The story may also serve as a metaphor for a sexual awakening, as in Angela Carter's story "The Company of Wolves", published in her collection The Bloody Chamber (1979). (Carter's story was adapted into a film by Neil Jordan in 1984.) In the story, the wolf is in fact a werewolf, and comes to newly-menstruating Red Riding Hood in the forest in the form of a charming hunter. He turns into a wolf and eats her grandmother, and is about to devour her as well, when she is equally seductive and ends up lying with the wolf man, her sexual awakening.^[32] Such tellings bear some similarity to the "animal bridegroom" tales, such as Beauty and the Beast or The Frog Prince, but where the heroines of those tales transform the hero into a prince, these tellings of Little Red Riding Hood reveal to the heroine that she has a wild nature like the hero's.^[33]

Little Red Riding Hood is also one of the central characters in the 1987 Broadway musical Into the Woods by Steven Sondheim and James Lapine. In the song, "I Know Things Now" she speaks of how the wolf made her feel "excited, well, excited and scared," in a reference to the sexual undertones of their relationship. Red Riding Hood's cape is also one of the musical's four quest items that are emblematic of fairy tales.^[34]

Publishers like BeeGang and So Out maintained unaltered the original story written by Charles Perrault mainly adding interactivity or educational content to their book apps; Other publishers like BlueQuoll, an Australian publishing group, have pushed further the boundaries of the narration and re-invented the story even in the title, Mr. Wolf and the Ginger Cupcakes that puts the wolf at the center of the narration. In their version the element of good vs evil is removed from the story and the wolf is not portraited as a negative character that deserves to die miserably at the end of the story.

See also[link]

Children's literature portal

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Little Red-Cap

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Little Red Riding Hood

• Little Red Riding Hood at the Internet Movie Database
• A three dimensional book of Little Red Riding Hood – created by Jan Hogan and held by the Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland
• SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages: The Annotated Little Red Riding Hood.
• Little red Riding Hood felt Board Story from Felt Works
• Another collection of different versions of Little Red Riding Hood.
• A free online video of Little Red Riding Hood.
• Homepage of the Little Red Riding Hood Project
• Terri Windling's 'The Path of Needles or Pins: Little Red Riding Hood' – a thorough article on the history of LRRH.
• Catherine Orenstein's 'Dances with Wolves' from Ms. magazine. – a shorter article on the history of LRRH (by the author of a book on subject).
• Olivier Dezutter's 'Little Red Riding Hood : a Story of Women at the Crossroads' – an article concerning different stories and images of LRRH.
• The Disney version of Little Red Riding Hood at The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts
• Full text to Little Red-Riding-Hood from "The Fairy Book"
• Original versions and psychological analysis of Little Red Riding Hood
• Little Red Riding Hood, audio version (French)
• eBook Le Petit Chaperon Rouge with sound and modern pictures, Zabouille éditions (French)
• Link to the Publisher BeeGang
• Link to the Publisher So Ouat
• Link to the Publisher BlueQuoll
• Link to the page of Mr. Wolf and the Ginger Cupcakes