Chapter Reason to Red Riding-Hood of R by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Red-Cap (Mother), an old nurse at the Hungerford Stairs.—Sir W. Scott: Fortunes of Nigel (time, James I.).

Red-Cap (Mother). Madame Bufflon was so called, because her bonnet was deeply coloured with her own blood in a street fight at the outbreak of the French Revolution.—Melville.

Red-Cotton Night-Cap Country, or “Turf and Towers;” a poem by R. Browning (1873). A real-life drama enacted partly in Paris, partly in Normandy. The story is as follows: Léonce Miranda was son and heir to a wealthy Spanish jeweller in the Place Vendôme. He fell in love with an adventuress, Clara Mulhausen, retired with her from Paris, and took up his abode at Clairvaux in an old priory. His mother died from grief at her son’s wrong-doing, and Miranda at first tried to abjure Clara; but, his love being too strong, he lived with her again. At last, tired of life, he threw himself from the top of his Belvedere and was killed. The title of the book arose as follows: The volume is dedicated to Miss Thackeray. She and Browning met at St. Aubyn, and she called the place, for a joke, “White-Cotton Night-Cap Country,” from its sleepy appearance and the white cap universally worn. Mr. Browning called his story, Red-Cotton, etc., from the tragedy of Clairvaux.

(The real names of the characters are found in Mrs. Sutherland Orr’s Handbook to Browning, p. 261.)

Red Cross Knight (The) represents St. George the patron saint of England. His adventures, which occupy bk. i. of Spenser’s Faërie Queene, symbolize the struggles and ultimate victory of holiness over sin (or protestantism over popery). Una comes on a white ass to the court of Gloriana, and craves that one of the knights would undertake to slay the dragon which kept her father and mother prisoners. The Red Cross Knight, arrayed in all the armour of God (Eph. vi. 11-17), undertakes the adventure, and goes, accompanied for a time with Una; but, deluded by Archimago, he quits the lady, and the two meet with numerous adventures. At last, the knight, having slain the dragon, marries Una; and thus holiness is allied to truth (1590).

Red Flag (A) signified war in the Roman empire; and when displayed on the capitol it was a call for assembling the military for active service.

Red Hair. Judas was represented in ancient paintings with red hair and red beard.

His very hair is of the dissembling colour,
Something browner than Judas’s.
   —Shakespeare: As You Like It, act iv. sc. 4 (1600).

Red Hand of Ulster.

Calverley of Calverley, Yorkshire. Walter Calverley, Esq., in 1605, murdered two of his children, and attempted to murder his wife and a child “at nurse.” This became the subject of The Yorkshire Tragedy. In consequence of these murders, the family is required to wear “the bloody hand.”

The Holt family, of Lancashire, has a similar tradition connected with their coat armour.

Red Horse (Vale of the), in Warwickshire; so called from a horse cut in a hill of reddish soil, “a witness of that day we won upon the Danes.”

White horse is …exalted to the skies;
But Red horse of you all contemned only lies.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xiii. (1613).

Red Knight (The), sir Perimonês, one of the four brothers who kept the passages leading to Castle Perilous. In the allegory of Gareth, this knight represents noon, and was the third brother. Night, the eldest born, was slain by sir Gareth; the Green Knight, which represents the young day-spring, was overcome, but not slain; and the Red Knight, being overcome, was spared also. The reason is this: darkness is slain, but dawn is only overcome by the stronger light of noon, and noon decays into the evening twilight.