Little Red Riding Hood

ONCE upon a time... in the middle of a thick forest stood a small cottage, the home of a pretty little girl known to everyone as Little Red Riding Hood.



One day, her Mummy waved her goodbye at the garden gate, saying, "Grandma is ill. Take her this basket of cakes, but be very careful. Keep to the path through the wood and don't ever stop. That way, you will come to no harm."



Little Red Riding Hood kissed her mother and ran off. "Don't worry", she said, "I'll run all the way to Grandma's without stopping".



Full of good intensions, the little girl made her way through the wood, but she was soon to forget her mother's wise words. "What lovely strawberries! And so red..."



Wilhelm Carl Grimm (1786 – 1859) was a German author and anthropologist. He was the younger brother of Jacob Grimm, of the literary duo the Brothers Grimm.



Wilhelm was born in February 1786 in Hanau, in Hesse-Kassel. In 1803, he started studying law at the University of Marburg, one year after his brother Jacob started there. The two brothers spent their entire lives close together. In their school days, they had one bed and one table in common; as students, they had two beds and two tables in the same room. They always lived under one roof and had their books and property in common.



In 1825, 39-year-old Wilhelm married pharmacist's daughter Henriette Dorothea Wild, also known as Dortchen. Wilhelm's marriage did not change the harmony of the brothers. Richard Cleasby visited the brothers and observed, "they both live in the same house, and in such harmony and community that one might almost imagine the children were common property."