So when I took a course on fairytales and folklore in college, I was one of the few in the class who already knew that in the oldest known version of Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf eats her and there is no rescuing woodcutter.

I'm convinced that the current popular ending, with the rescuing woodcutter, was made up on the spur of the moment by a harried parent in a dialogue going something like this:

"...The wolf ate her?"

"Yup."

"But but but --" *lipwobble* *huge eyes slowly filling with tears*

"And you see, that teaches us that --"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH."

"-- you see, because the little girl didn't --"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH."

"-- okay, yeah, I see you get it. Now go to sle--"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH."

Fifteen minutes later: "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH."

"-- okay! Okay, she didn't die! Uh ... there was, right, okay, there was a woodcutter passing by at just that moment..."

"WAAAA--" *snif* "Wuh?"

"Yes! A woodcutter. And he heard the wolf growling, and he burst in and cut off the wolf's head with his axe and saved the little girl just in time."

*snif* *snif* *lipwobble* "'nd the grandmother?"

"...right. Um. Uh, the woodcutter chopped the wolf open with his axe and rescued the grandmother from inside his stomach. And so both the little girl and the grandmother were perfectly safe and all right and will you please go to sleep now?"

*snif* "'kay."




Or something like that.