The VERY Messed Up Origins of Little Red Riding Hood | Fables Explained

[Music] what is going on solo fam my name is John solo and this is messed up origins the show where I break down the incredibly shocking and disturbing backstories behind some of your favorite childhood fairytales we're more than two weeks into the month of October and that means a few things first my birthday is coming up and so is Weird Al's Ryan Reynolds and Pele's I guess that great men are born on October 23rd with Assad Kyle at being the exception second it's the month of spookiness and hora and I want to get into the spirit of the season so for the rest of October I'm making a point to cover the most horrifying origin stories I can find and that starts with today's episode we are gonna look at the truly disturbing fables that inspired one of the most famous fairy tales in the history of human existence Little Red Riding Hood similar to last week's episode about Goldilocks and the three bears we're actually covering multiple stories today because Red Riding Hood has been around a lot longer than you think and her story has evolved over time and to avoid sounding redundant for the first time ever on messed-up origins we are actually gonna skip the recap of the modern story now don't get used to this being a thing the reason I'd like to recap the stories is because I want you guys to have the modern versions freshen your hat it makes it easier for me to draw comparisons and highlight the ways these stories differ the problem is the Red Riding Hood's story doesn't really have a single modern version that everyone knows it's been adapted and parodied across countless movies and TV shows including Disney Silly Symphonies but that was more about finding a way to include the ever-so-popular Three Little Pigs into another Shore and it actually plays out pretty similar to the classic versions we're talking about anyways even though today's stories are all dumped in their own unique ways the core elements of the plot don't change it's always about a little girl bringing food to her grandma and finding a monster in her place before we get started on that make sure you smash that like button with all your heart so we can reach our goal of 10,000 likes that you guys have shattered for the past two weeks and also subscribe and ring that bell to be notified about new messed up content delivered right to your sub box every week so let's start with the most recent of the origin stories the one written by the Grimm brothers in 1856 this is probably the best known version for modern audiences it starts by introducing us to a beautiful little girl named riding-hood who got that nickname because her grandma made her a red velvet cap when she was little and it suited her so well she insisted on wearing it all the time one day Riding Hood's mother tells her that grandma's sick and to bring her some cake and a bottle of wine to make her feel better interesting remedy I'm curious to see what kinds of illnesses can be cured by eating cake and drinking wine Reds mother gives her specific instructions about the delivery set out before it gets hot and when you are going walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path or you may fall and break the bottle and then your grandmother will get nothing and when you go into a room don't forget to say good morning and don't peep into every corner before you do it nag much Reds grandma live deep in the woods where there was as much beauty as there was danger that danger manifests itself in the form of the big bad wolf who Red Riding Hood runs into on her journey now remember red is an innocent little girl I would say seven at the absolute oldest so she doesn't quite understand how much of a threat that wolf is he asks her how she's doing what she's up to and where she's headed and the little girl answers honestly maybe a little too honestly she not only says that she's bringing food to her sick grandma she also says exactly where her grandma lives a good quarter of a league farther on in the wood her house stands under the three large oak trees and the nut trees are just below the wolf thought red looked delicious but he knew if he played his cards right he could snag both her and her grandma so he came up with a plan to distract us he tells Riding Hood to look around the beautiful forest and appreciate her surroundings listen to the birds chirping smell the beautiful flowers and even pick a few if she wants the girl reasons it would be nice to bring her grandma some flowers so she does exactly what her mother warned her not to and leaves the path to go picks off only every time she plucks one she sees a more beautiful flower just a little bit further away and before you know it she's wandered completely astray meanwhile the wolf is running to Grandma's house as fast as he can he impersonates Red Riding Hood so grandma would let him in and as soon as that door is open he gobbles her right up then he put on her nightgown and cap shut the curtains and laid in bed waiting for red to get there when she shows up a few minutes later she notices right away that something is off because grandma's door is wide open when she goes inside she pulls back the curtains to see grandma lying in bed with her cat pulled over her face looking very strange here's where that classic dialogue comes in riding hood says grandmother what big ears you have and the imposter the better to hear you with my child read also points out her grandma's rather large eyes and hands but apparently those are just for seeing and hugging now that terrible big mouth that's for eating and riding hood' learns this when she points it out to the big bad wolf and he responds by eating her since he just maxed out on not one but two helpless victims the wolf is tired and feeling a nap so he lays back down in grandma's bed and passes out a short while later a huntsman walks by grandma's house and notices she left the front door open which is pretty unusual for her as he approaches he sees that grandmas nowhere to be found and sleeping in her place is the wolf he's been hunting for quite some time he whispers menacingly under his breath do I find you here old sinner I have long sought you and he's about to blow him away with a blast from his gun when he realizes grandma could still be saved while the wolf is sleeping the Huntsman takes a pair of scissors and cuts him open first he pulls out Red Riding Hood who was terrified of how dark it was in the wolf's stomach and then he pulls out grandma who's barely breathe in but still clinging to life the three of them get some large rocks to fill the wolf's stomach in their place and then they sew him up when he wakes up he realizes he's surrounded and tries to run away but the rocks were so heavy that he just collapsed and died right on the spot the Huntsman takes the wolf pelt home as his trophy for another kill grandma eats her cake and drinks her wine and Red Riding Hood learned a valuable lesson about straying from her path and divulging private information to strangers now what's unique about this stories the Grimm brothers wrote a sort of epilogue to show that red really did learn her lesson some time later while on her way to Grandma's again she runs into another wolf but this time she ignores him keeps her eyes forward and runs straight to her grandmother's house and locks the door behind her so he can't get in similar to the last wolf a few minutes later this one knocks on the door pretending to be Little Red Riding Hood hoping to trick grandma but obviously that's not gonna work this time after realizing this he comes up with another strategy wait on the roof until nightfall when Red has to leave and gobble her up in the darkness but grandma knew what he was up to so she devised an even better plan she told red there was a big trough right in front of her house and to fill it with the water she used to boil sausages the day before as the truck gets more and more filled the wolf catches the scent of them sausages and sticks out his nose for another way when he does this he loses his footing and slides right off the roof into the trough and drowns little red was able to skip home safely that same night and no one did anything to harm her ever again must be nice now that was how the Brothers Grimm decided to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood and while it's pretty similar to the first official version by Charles Perrault which we're talking about next it's got a few distinct differences firstly in Perrault story which was published in 1697 in a book called tales and stories of the past with morals tales of Mother Goose Red Riding Hood's mother is much less naggy and doesn't give her as specific instructions for how to get to Grandma's house nor does she warn her to stay on the path also instead of bringing her sick grandma a cake and some wine she's bringing her a piece of cake and a little pot of butter I don't know what kind of diets these people were on but I understand why their lifespans were so sure unlike the Grimm story where the wolf tricks Ratna to straying from the path in this one she does it on her own by chasing butterflies and picking flowers eventually on her journey she runs into the wolf and the only thing that stops him from eating her right there is the woodcutters watching from nearby but it's a good thing he was patient because like last time red spills the beans on what she's doing and where her grandma lives so he sends her on a roundabout way while he takes a shortcut he races to her grandma's eats her up real quick because apparently he hadn't eaten in three days and when red shows up he tells her to come in instead of disguising himself as grandma he's pulled the curtain shut so it's mostly dark inside and he hides under the covers so red can't see him while impersonating grandma he tells her to put the food on the stool take off her clothes and join him in bed you heard that right by the way he did tell her to take off her clothes but don't ask me why she gets into bed with him and here's where that classic exchange makes another appearance she questions why her grandma has such big arms legs ears and eyes and then learns the hard way what those big teeth before the wolf eats Red Riding Hood in one swift motion and the story's over seriously initially audiences responded to the sending the same way I did and I would imagine how you did as well by asking what was the point of that and Perrault eventually came out and clarified what the moral of his story was children especially attractive well-bred young ladies should never talk to strangers for if they should do so they may well provide dinner for I say wolf but there are various kinds of wolves there's also those who are charming quiet polite unassuming complacent and sweet and who pursue young women at home and in the streets and unfortunately it's these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous ones of all the story may be a bit strange but I'd say that's a lesson we can all get on board with if you're a little kid don't talk to strangers because you never know what stranger is a wolf in sheep's clothing the Perrault story is an interesting one but the legend of Riding Hood goes back even farther than 1697 if you dig a little deeper you can find another fable with an awfully similar plot called beef balls grandmother which can be traced back to 10th century Italy there it was called La Quinta Nonna and the antagonist actually wasn't a wolf depending on the version you read he could either be a werewolf or a female Oh grrrrrr apparently called an aggress in this edition Red Riding Hood also doesn't have a name she's referred to as little girl throughout the story and instead of bringing cake or wine or butter to her sick grandma she brings a hot loaf of bread and some milk to her grandma who apparently just needed some milk and bread didn't have groceries we've all been there on her way over the girl comes to a fork in the road were either a werewolf or ogress is waiting for her the monster already seems to know where grandma lives so instead of interrogating the little girl it simply tells her to take needles road while it takes pins bro get it pins and needles well it turns out those roads actually contain what their names in fur so while the little girl spends time picking up literal needles on needles road the monster goes to Grandma's house eats her and then puts a chunk of her flesh and a bottle of her blood in the pantry we don't know how the monster disguised itself this time around but we do know that when the little girl got to her grandma's house she didn't realize it was an imposter and as a result something disgusting happens probably the most grotesque thing we've ever discussed on this show under the orders of the monster the little girl goes to the pantry drops off the milk and bread and then takes the slab of meat and bottle of wine from off the shelf and eats them and that's now something you can't unknown when the original Red Riding Hood story she literally eats the flesh and drinks the blood of her grandma in alternate versions she also eats her ears and teeth thinking it's just more meat and beans and then complains when they're too hard to chew trashcans right here if you need it at this point grandma's cat who wasn't mentioned before and has never brought up again sits at the little girl's feet and shames her for what she's eating the exact quote is pretty intense he says a is she who eats the flesh and drinks the blood of her grandmother before you ask I'm not one to slut-shame I have no opinion in this if you want to eat the flesh and drink the blood of your grandma I'm not gonna shame you and call you a but this cat will and the little girl responds to his accusation by saying did you just call me a and punting him out the window just kidding but she should have instead the cat's weird little comments about eating grandparents somehow didn't resonate with the girl when she finished her dinner and then similar to the Perrault story the monster tells the little girl to take off her clothes and throw them in the fire because she won't need them anymore what makes it weirder is that he orders her to remove them one article at a time and then when the girl gets into bed those classic lines make another appearance she questions why her grandma is so hairy why her nails are so long why her arms and shoulders are so big it's crazy how far back we've gone in this conversation is still in the story in some versions this is where she gets eaten in the story and similar to Perrault but in others the monster literally says the better to eat you with and nothing happens instead at this moment the girl realizes that whoever she's laying in bed with has a tail and there's no way her grandma could have a tail so she comes up with a plan to escape right on the spot she tells the monster she has to go to the bathroom and it tells her to just go in the bed which is disgusting pee soaked bet aside you're planning on eating this girl but you really want her covered in pee well it turns out that she thinks that's weird too and insists that she be allowed outside so the monster let her go but he tied a rope around her ankle so he could yank her back remember in his mind he's still fooling her so he can't risk escorting her outside her seeing what he is and then running away she's a smart one though so when she gets outside she ties the rope around a tree and starts running home after a minute or so goes by the monster starts getting annoyed and when he tries pulling back the girl he realizes she's no longer attached he Springs out of bed and chases after her as fast as he can but he only catches up in time to see her make it safely to her house and that's how the story ends so those were the three most popular version a few little red riding-hood fable just a refresher the Grimm brothers came out in 1856 Perrault was published in 1697 and the last one can be traced back as a folk tale to the 10th century supposedly the story was traded among French peasants around that time period and it slowly made its way to Italy but it doesn't stop there cultural anthropologists have found versions of little red riding-hood dating back almost 3,000 years to ancient Greece that version was attributed to the famous writer Aesop I tried to find which of Aesop's fables was the most similar to it so I could share it with you guys and I read at least 25 of Aesop's writings with the word wolf in the title and none of them were even close so I don't know which one the anthropologists were referring to another version we didn't cover was called the tiger grandma or grandad tigress and it can be traced back all the way to China during the Qing Dynasty the reason I didn't want to go in-depth on that one is it plays out exactly like all the other stories we covered but replaces the wolf with a tiger don't get me wrong it's a pretty cool switch but not one worth going over in detail so tell me solo fam what did you think of Riding Hood's origin stories were they as dark as you were hoping if not you're probably a psychopath because it doesn't get much darker than a little girl being tricked into eating her grandma's remains except for the ending a box from the Hound that is that was on another level let me know your thoughts in the comments down below what story was your favorite like always if you enjoyed this episode of messed up origins make a point to smash that like button with all your hearts we can reach our goal of 10,000 likes and keep our family growing also don't forget to subscribe and ring that bell to join the notification fam and receive alerts whenever new messed up content gets delivered to your sub box if you want to stay updated on the messed up origin series what projects I'm working on next or if you just want to say hey you can follow me on social media I got the handles right in front of you in links down below until next time solo fam my name is John solo and remember John shot first [Music]

Channel: Jon Solo

Views: 1,058,669

Rating: 4.9595232 out of 5

Keywords: Messed Up Origins of Little Red Riding Hood, VERY Messed Up Origins, Messed up origins, little red riding hood, fables explained, Jon Solo, big bad wolf, silly symphonies, three little pigs, brothers grimm, charles perrault, la finta nona, the false grandmother, big bad wolf song, red riding hood original story, red riding hood brothers grimm, hoodwinked, into the woods, red riding hood origins, humpty dumpty, goldilocks and the three bears, disturbing true story

Id: o3-XJSwWTLk

Length: 15min 19sec (919 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 17 2018