Last night I was combing through the fairy tale books on Gutenberg Galaxy’s bookshelf of Children’s Myths & Fairy Tales. I was looking for prefaces to various collections for a lesson for my students.

I came across this edition by Watty Piper from 1922. While it did not have any kind of preface, I did notice something about the first story “Red Riding Hood.”

Usually the little girl is rescued from the wolf by a huntsman or woodsman who hears her screaming as the wolf is about to eat her.

In this version, the little girl is rescued (coincidence) by her father  who just happens to be nearby.

I think it is interesting that the rescuer has been transformed into a powerful, protective father who is saving his little darling from a rapacious, slavering male wolf. Is there any version of Red Riding Hood where the wolf is not male? Of course, the wolf in psychoanalytic terms if a symbol of all those bad men who want to “eat” a tender, sweet little girl.

By shifting the unrelated woodsman to a blood-related father, Piper takes out the new threat to Red Riding Hood’s virtue. His version of the story becomes a celebration of the enclosed nuclear family where each member takes on the usual gender stereotype.

In the last illustration from the title pages,  Red’s cloak is  caught by a tree branch. Is this symbolic of that cautioning hand that believes going into the forest is not a good idea?

The happy return to the mother.