Topic: Little Red Riding Hood's wayward past revealed:

[Clive]

"Once upon a time, (the story) was a seduction tale. An engraving accompanying the first published version of the story, in Paris in 1697, shows a girl in her déshabille, lying in bed beneath a wolf. According to the plot, she has just stripped out of her clothes, and a moment later the tale will end with her death in the beast?s jaws ? no salvation, no redemption. Any reader of the day would have immediately understood the message: In the French slang, when a girl lost her virginity it was said that 'elle avoit vű le loup' ? she?d seen the wolf."

http://www.msmagazine.com/summer2004/danceswithwolves.asp