The Red Cloak

A long time ago, in a country far across the ocean, there lived a girl named Robin. Robin lived with her mother and father in a small cottage, in a small village, on the edge of an immense forest.

Robin’s grandmother was an excellent seamstress, some said the best in the land, and had been the Chief Embroiderer to the present King’s family before her eyesight became dim, and she could no longer work at her profession. The royal family gave her a pension and one of their seldom-used hunting lodges deep in the forest in which to live out her days. Robin’s mother had asked the grandmother many times to come and share their cottage by the edge of the forest, but old woman always refused, preferring to live alone, deep within her beloved forest.

In this land, when girls were young, before their first menses, they wore capes with hoods of grey, to signify their status as pre-menstrual girls. After her first menses, a girl was given a red hooded cloak, made in pieces by all the female relations in her immediate family, and sewn together by the girl’s mother. The cloak was often decorated by embroidery chosen by the women in the family, and these designs were usually personalised to the wearer.

Robin’s first menses had come a few days earlier, and she had awoken early on this particular morning to find a paper package at the foot of her bed. She had eagerly ripped open the package, to reveal a beautiful red wool cloak. The cloak was made of the finest wool, in a deep, scarlet hue, the color of blood.

Robin’s grandmother had insisted on doing the embroidery upon the hood of Robin’s new red cloak herself, picking out the stitches by feel, not trusting her fading eyes. The embroidery upon the hood was incredibly fine, and depicted a tapestry drawn from the forest, with real and mythical creatures, and flowers of every sort, trees, and, occasionally, an embroidered sunbeam poking its way through the deep canopy of the stitched trees, for Robin shared her grandmother’s love of the forest.

Robin sat marveling at the embroidery until her mother called her for breakfast.

Over the meal, Robin’s parents had told her that they were having a special, celebratory dinner that evening, to welcome her womanhood and had invited her grandmother and all of Robin’s friends.

Robin’s grandmother had fallen the week before, and injured her hip, and so would be unable to attend the party. Robin asked if she could visit the old woman to thank her for the cloak, and to cheer her up. Her parents agreed. This was, after all, a time of great peace and stability in the land, and people lived generally in trust and harmony. Only the previous month, a wandering minstrel had found a purse in the forest, dropped by a merchant in the little village where Robin lived, and had come through the town passing out of his way, to return the money to its owner.

After breakfast, Robin set out for the cottage, deep in the forest. She knew the way by heart, and felt no fear upon entering the primeval gloom of the woods. She, after all, shared her grandmother’s love of the forest. Her mother had provisioned her with a basket of pumpkin soup and freshly-baked corn bread. Robin put on her new red cloak and happily skipped off into the forest.

Now at this time there lived deep in the heart of the forest a wily and devious old Wolf. As he became older and less nimble at chasing sheep, he had turned to attacking humans. He soon discovered that most people could outrun him, so he learned to target the older or more infirm, those who could not easily escape his claws. His choice victims were elderly women, who although tough and sinewy, could not readily flee.

The Wolf had hit upon the strategy of donning the clothes of his first such victim, an elderly wise woman gathering herbs deep in the forest, in order to lull his victims into false complacency until he was too close for escape. The healer had flung stinging nettles at him as he attacked her; his face and chest burned and itched for days afterwards.

The Wolf had discovered that he liked the feel of wearing women’s clothing; he liked the way dresses rustled and swirled about him as he stalked. He would often don the clothes of his victims and walk around the forest, exulting in the swishing and swirling movements of the skirts.

For years, the Wolf had avoided the royal hunting lodge in the forest, associating it with men, and dogs, and dreaded arrows. He had passed by it recently, however, to discover to his surprise that an old woman was now living there. As the woman had remained inside for the past week, with the door bolted, he had been unable to get to her.

At the same time that Robin was going deeper and deeper into the forest, the old Wolf was emerging from his lair, his stomach rumbling in hunger, going in search of fresh prey. He was dressed in the simple habit of a nun, his last victim. He was already deciding not to wear the habit again as its coarse fabric kept rubbing against his fur and catching on every bramble and briar, and the wooden cross banged irritatingly against his chest at every step.

At one point, Robin came around a large tree trunk to find the Wolf standing, bent over at the waist, trying to disentangle his habit from a wild raspberry cane. Thinking that the Wolf was a nun, Robin came over to help him free his habit. The Wolf, startled at first by her sudden appearance, began to think that Providence had sent him his next meal. Robin, worked carefully to free the coarse fabric from the sharp thorns, and began to chat with the ‘nun’, asking her where she was from and where she was going. The Wolf was unable to move his fore-limbs at all, so decided to bide his time until he was free, rather than risk revealing himself to his prey while she was free to run and he was not. He carefully kept his face averted while talking, so Robin got the impression that she was helping an extra-ordinarily hairy nun, who only grunted short, terse replies to her questions and kept her head bowed.

As Robin worked, the Wolf stared at her embroidered cloak, and found himself coveting the beautiful garment. ‘What an addition it would make to my collection,’ he thought to himself, ‘What a beautiful thing to wear as I walk around the forest.’

Finally Robin managed to free the habit and stepped back. She was growing suspicious of this hairy nun, and was starting to feel uneasy. ‘Where are you going, my dear?’ asked the Wolf in a muffled, falsetto voice, hiding his face in his hood, ‘Perhaps we can walk together.’ His arms were creeping up his sides. ‘I’m going to visit my grandmother…’ blurted out Robin before she caught herself. For some reason, she felt it unwise to say any more. ‘I really must be on my way now,’ she said to the Wolf. She stepped nimbly passed him and vanished behind the tree trunk. The Wolf started to chase her, and fell smartly on his face as his habit caught again on the raspberry cane. He started to tear at the habit and then stopped. A grin spread over his face. ‘No matter,’ he thought to himself, ‘ Her grandmother must be that old woman who lives in the hunting lodge. I know where to find them both.’

About the time that Robin reached her grandmother’s house, the Wolf had finally managed to free himself from the cane, and ripping off the habit, he raced through the forest to the cottage. He reached the clearing in front just as Robin helped her grandmother outside to sit in a chair in the sun. The two women would often sit like this when Robin came to visit, with the pair catching up on news and gossip, while her grandmother instructed Robin in the finer points of embroidery. Robin had been taught to embroider since she was very young, and now was almost as skilled as her grandmother has been as a young woman.

The Wolf raced from the trees, and with a snarl sprang at the women, knocking them both to the ground. The grandmother began to yell at the top of her lungs, and hammered the Wolf with her balled fists, stabbing him repeatedly with the needle she still held between her fingers. Robin ran to the woodpile at the side of the house, and grabbed the axe that was lying there, and flew back to defend her grandmother. The Wolf, by now, was growling loudly and standing on all fours over the prostrate grandmother, who continued to stab at his eyes. He had taken several direct hits to the eyes, and was somewhat blinded by running blood. The Wolf failed to notice Robin advancing grimly upon him with the axe clutched fiercely over her head. The last sensation the Wolf knew was a blinding, searing flash of pain as Robin swung the axe and split his skull.

A passing woodsman has been attracted by the cries of the grandmother, and came running towards the cottage. Upon seeing the Wolf lying in a pool of his own blood, the woodsman fainted dead away. Robin, after helping her grandmother to her feet, was forced to fetch a bucket of water from the well in order to revive him.

Once revived, the woodsman felt considerable embarrassment, and engaged in a certain amount of foot shuffling as he apologised for his weakness and listened to the two women relate the events of the Wolf’s attack and demise. He then insisted on escorting Robin home. The woodsman came to court Robin regularly after that, and within a short time, was asking her to marry him. Robin’s reply was that she wished to have a career before she could think of having a family.

After a number of years, Robin was appointed as the Chief Embroidererer to the court of the old King. She then agreed to marry her woodsman, who had waited patiently for her. They were married in the small church in Robin’s village, with her parents and grandmother in attendance. Years passed and Robin’s daughters crawled under the loving gaze of their parents on a wolf-skin rug placed in front of the fireplace in the small cottage at the edge of the forest that Robin shared with her woodsman.

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