Where does the Sun shine out of?

From: Bruce Lionel Mason <bmason_at_cs.mun.ca>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 19:12:04 -0330

Simon Hibbs notes that there was a belief that the Little Red Riding Hood emerging out of the wolf's belly could be interpreted as a feminine Sun myth. Not really I'm afraid. There was a big movement around the turn of the century interested in Solar mythology where all myths and folktales were interpreted as metaphors for the Sun either rising or waxing and waning with the year. It was kind of a humorous school of thought of the most ludicrous form of monomythism. Poor old Red got pretty violently co-opted into this movement on the basis of her red hood, despite the fact that the red hood was grafted onto the folktales by a chap named Charles Perrault (if memory serves me well) who invented the literary form of LRRH which we all know and love.

If you want an interesting ref for LRRH it is known in the canon as AT333 (which means if you go to dusty old folklore collections and look up that in the type index you'll find versions of LRRH.) and also there is by Alan Dundes a book entitled Little Red Riding Hood --- A Casebook. Loads of useful material to base some Gloranthan folklore.

BTW have you noticed that there is very little Glorantha folklore? If you take the standard definition of the relation between myth and folktale (structurally similar but myths deal with social problems and folktales personal problems) I think virtually everything I've seen so far has been based on myth.

Out of interest what things would an Orlanthi consider as bringing good or bad luck?

Bruce Mason,

           folklore dept, Memorial U Newfoundland.

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