The origins of the Little Red Riding Hood story can be traced to oral 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. 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). 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. In some versions, the wolf eats the girl after she gets into bed with him, and the story ends there. 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 (wolf genitals?) and runs off.
These earlier and kinkier variations of the curious tale set interesting side premises to an otherwise perverse sort of love affair. Eating grandmother and then hitting the sheets sounds like a recipe for a scandalous inheritance murder mystery. Big Bad or BB Wolf eats grammy leaving no trace, gets the young Red Hood, and maybe this is wear the Riding part of the title comes in. Thus the couple inherits the old bags fortune, gets hitched, and here is the fabled photo of the two at their 50th wedding anniversary.
The photo says 1852 50th Wedding Anniversary 1902 and is an odd piece that was excavated from my great aunt’s home which dates back prior to 1900. I’m obsessed with strange old photos and the characters that are lost in time and yet captured to reveal a past glimpse into private space. Properly fitting Mr Wolf and Lil Red in their colonial and classic garb stand proud as one of fairy tales greatest evil duo. All this time the sinister story of their love affair was under the nose of the public. I’m digging up the dirt and have found more twisted folk in ancient archives and will be releasing these cases into the Pop Fiction series as classic culture sub stories.
There is a bit of interesting history behind the couple who were in the original photo and it seems to somehow correlate with my present theme of Red and BBW. The Wolf is none other than J E Dazey, the baron scoundrel of the Midwest. Dazey ran the small county of Shelby like a mob boss. He relied on henchmen to perform heinous tasks such as burn crosses to intimidate the irish and protestants, committed fraud and burned estates he sold to collect insurance, and was connected to an early cult similar to the Masonic Order. The actual photo was taken at the turn of the 21st Century in honor of the crooked couples 50th wedding anniversary. The Dazey’s ruled the small towns around the county by striking fear into those they did not see fit as part of the ‘clan’. If you weren’t paying Dazey he would find a way to make you pay. There are a few old tombstones and monuments to this villainous family all around Shelby County though no real heritage exists today. It kinda boils my blood and curdles my brain knowing there is a sick and twisted part of history that was peering out at me as I painted on the old depiction.
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