In a March 16 letter to the editor, the author states, in referring to Chicken Little, “She has proven herself to have been quite a prolific progenitor as there are millions of people who, as she did, believe that the sky is falling.”

The Chicken Little story was part of the oral folk tradition that goes back 25 centuries and only began to appear in print in the early years of the 19th century.

One of the earliest to collect tales from Scandinavian sources was Just Mathias Thiele, who in 1823 published a version of the story in the Danish language. In it, a nut falls on Chicken Little’s back and, “He then goes to each of the other characters, proclaiming that, ‘I think all the world is falling.’ ”

In Walt Disney’s 1943 short film “Chicken Little” (Wikipedia), the protagonist, hungry Foxy Loxy, “breaks off a piece of wood from a fortune teller’s sign, and then disorients Chicken Little with the suggestion of a thunderstorm before dropping it on his head. Pretending to be ‘the voice of doom,’ Loxy tells Little that the sky is falling, and a piece of it hit him on the head. He then goes on to tell him that he should run for his life. Chicken Little panics, he spreads the word to everyone.”

So, is hysteria gender specific?

Mary Lawrence

Kihei