Ch. 6 - The Path of Needles or Pins Little Red Riding Hood

Traditional literature is a written form of stories that were originally oral stories.  I decided to read Terri Windlings's The Path of Needles or Pins: Little Red Riding Hood.  According to Windlings, the oral version of Little Red Riding Hood was called The Grandmother's Story.  This oral story was shaped by the rural traditions of France from the Middle Ages onward. The girl in The Grandmother's Story does not wear her famous red hooded cloak and she is not rescued by the hunter.  Christopher Perrault added the red hooded cloak and Brothers Grimm added the hunter.  Authors over time rewrite traditionl literature to set the story in conemporary times.  The version of Little Red Riding Hood that we grew up reading warned little girls of the dangers of being disobedient.  The oral version of The Grandmother's Story is quite gruesome and provocative for young childern to even read.  As I kept reading Windling's story and the information Windling used from scholars, I learned some interesting things.

The oral version of this story has cannibalism and the werewolf makes the girl strip naked before she gets into bed.  As we all know, these elements are not in the story of Little Red Riding Hood that we know today. In the oral version, the werewolf asks the girl which path she will take to her grandmother's house, the Path of Needles or the Path of Pins?  The girl chooses the Path of Pins.  In 1995, Yvonne Verdier studied the folklore, traditions, and rituals of rural women in remote areas of France.  She found that when girls reached the age of fifteen, this was some type of ceremonial entry into the age group that signified their arrival into maidenhood.  This meant they were allowed to have sweethearts and go to dances.  The needle on the other hand implies sexual maturity.  Verdier found that needles were viewed as a sexual symbol and that in some parts of Europe, prostitutes wore needles on their sleeves to advertise their profession. Windling suggests that the girl is trying to grow up too quickly when she decides for the Path of Needles. 

Another interesting fact I learned was that the forest is seen as a "common dwelling for wise-women, witches, herbalists, and other femmes sauvage."  This suggests that the grandmother was most likely a witch of some sort.  Verdier sees the cannibalism in the oral story as a "sacrifical act, a physcial incorporation of the grandmother by her granddaughter," as well as symbolic, because of the "necessity of the female biological transformation by which the young eliminate the old in their own lifetime.  Mothers will be replaced by their daughters and the circle will be closed with the arrival of their childern's children."  Reading the part of the oral story where the girl eats parts of her grandmother was pretty gross and disturbing for me.

At the end of the story, the werewolf is drowned by the laundresses who helped the girl escape.  Verdier says that the laundresses played a double role in the oral story.  The first being they rescured the girl by allowing her to pass and the second being that they helped kill the werewolf by drowning him.   This is consistent to the laundresses' role in the village life is to assist in "passages" of helping in childbirth and helping people to die. 

After reading Windling's story I can now see why "traditional literture was not necessarily created for children."  It is very interesting to see how The Grandmother's Story evolved into The Little Red Riding Hood. 

Chapter 6 discussed traditional literture so I found two authors who have written Native American traditional literature.  Their books are listed below.

Cohlene, T. (1991). Little Firefly: An Algonquian legend. (4-6).

A retelling of the Algonquian Indian legend of how a young girl, badly mistreated by her sisters, becomes the bride of the great hunter known as the Invisible One. Includes information on the history and customs of the Algonquian Indians. 

Bruchac, J. & Ross, G. (1996). The girl who married the moon: Tales from Native North America. (5-6)

A companion volume to Bruchac’s Flying with the Eagle, Racing the Great Bear, this anthology focuses on the role of women in traditional Indian cultures. Culled from 16 Native North American cultures, these traditional tribal tales dwell on the time in a young girl’s life when she discovers she is becoming a woman.