When, some years ago, an editor commissioned a series for the re-telling of modern fairytales, I accepted with delight. I began the series with Thorn, a modern interpretation of Sleeping Beauty, and followed it with Changeling – a present-day version of Rumpelstiltskin.
But I saved what I believed to be the best until last.
Little Red Riding Hood has to be one of the most famous children’s stories, and also, of course, one of the most macabre. Its origins stretch a long way back – there are traces of it in Greek mythology and in Norse legend and Russian fairytales. The best-known versions today, of course, are the one that forms part of the famous collection gathered by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the first part of the nineteenth century, and the eerie 17th century story by the eminent French writer, Charles Perrault, who adds this cautionary note at the end of his tale:
"Watch out if you haven't learned that tame wolves Are the most dangerous of all...
Whatever its origins, it’s a story that has woven itself into our folklore – it’s been told and re-told until it’s threadbare and used in countless different ways. It even appeared in a Fry’s Cocoa advertisement in 1891.
As a child I had a terror of the story, which I read by mistake, having found an ancient copy thrust into the back of a cupboard. The pages were dry and they smelled of age and forgotten memories. The illustrations (probably they were by Gustave Doré), were harrowing, but I read the story with a kind of horrified compulsion. Afterwards, I had nightmares about wolves.
But all those years later, I discovered that a modern version of Little Red Riding Hood was the book I wanted to write. And Wildwood came into being.
The genesis of the book’s setting came from an ancient Derbyshire legend, uncovered during a visit to a tiny place called Millers Dale. I thought, in a general way, that it would make an appropriate background. But curious things sometimes happen in the shaping of fiction, and deeper investigation revealed the unsuspected, but intriguing, existence of the Foljambe family.
The Foljambes are documented in old Derbyshire records, and although the records are somewhat fragmentary, their provenance appears to be authentic. Little first-hand evidence of the family’s origins is available, but fascinating glimpses emerged, and it seems that in the time of William the Conqueror (1066-1087), the Foljambes were enfeoffed as hereditary foresters. I do love that word enfeoffed even though I had to look it up to be sure of its meaning. It’s a 14th century word, from the Anglo-French, and Collins English Dictionary has this to say about it:
[1] To invest a person with possession of a freehold estate in land
[2] In feudal society, to take someone into vassalage by giving a fee or feif in return for certain services.
Thus, the Foljambes were enfeoffed as hereditary foresters – a royal appointment which certainly included the slaying of wolves in the dense forests that covered a great part of the land. And the family was evidently successful in this part of its curious calling, since an entry in the Pipe Rolls of Henry II (1154-1189) refers to a sum of 25 shillings being paid to them as an extra fee for pursuing their profession over in Normandy – possibly at the request of the king.
In 1214 a Thomas Foljambe was knighted, and nearly a hundred years later, in 1301, Foljambe sons were summoned to the muster, (another beautiful old expression), at Berwick-upon-Tweed, to fight the Scots in the armies of the glittering Edward Plantagenet – the infamous battle in which the Stone of Destiny was seized from Scone Abbey by the English.
My enquiries and research indicate that the family had almost certainly died out when I wrote Wildwood. Even so, I do tender my apologies to any descendants that might still be living today for making so free with their history. But I must certainly add my gratitude to them for unknowingly providing me with such a marvellous basis for the plot of Wildwood.
