In the book, Valerie's mom noted how unimaginative her husband was, unable to dream of a life beyond being poor farmers. This becomes ironic when in the movie, it's revealed that the werewolf and Valerie's father are one-and-the-same, given the werewolf does dream of a better life, where they can move to the city, rob rich folk and feast on them (two birds with one stone).
Even if you remembered that in the original fairy tale a woodcutter saves Red from the wolf, the film has two woodcutters who'd have a personal reason to save Valerie, so knowing the original story provides you with no useful hint as to who the wolf could not be.
Father Solomon's children may seem strange, given he is a priest and apparently pretty high-ranked. But if you look at the cross on the roof of the church, it is clear we are dealing with an Orthodox village, hence it makes sense for Father Solomon to have children as Orthodox priests aren't banned from being married.
There's a problem with that, however: Father Auguste refers to Father Solomon's silver sword as having been "blessed by the Holy See," a clear reference to the papacy, and thence to the western church. It's possible that Solomon entered the priesthood after his wife died.
It's also worth noting that "no marriage" was something that evolved over time with more isolated areas having priesthoods be passed down through families similar to various trades.
Another possibility is he's an Eastern Rite Catholic, who often don't practice (mandatory) clerical celibacy. Western Ukrainian clergy of the Greek Catholic Church even make up a hereditary caste. However, they must marry before being ordained. Bishops also must have been celibate clerics (thus are usually former monks) in Eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches, just like the Latin Rite.
This is more of a supernatural geek Fridge Brilliance. Father Solomon's story of his wife draws its roots from an early werewolf tale of a professional werewolf hunter who shot a silver bullet at a werewolf and as it ran, he saw he had severed the paw from the wrist. He didn't find the body, (a little fuzzy if he found the paw or not), but the wolf never attacked again. Years later, a doctor heard the story and confessed to bandaging a woman's stump of a hand when she claimed she lost it to a barbed fence.
That can't be that old a werewolf story, since the idea that werewolves were vulnerable to silver was invented by Hollywood in the twentieth century. Also, barbed wire fences were only invented in the nineteenth century. Werewolf legends are much older than that; the story of Lykaon comes from ancient Greece, so werewolf myths existed in some form at least that far back.
Actually the idea of the werewolf's supposed vulnerability to silver dates back to the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, in which a gigantic wolf is killed by a hunter with the name of "Argent" which is Latin for silver, wielding a gun loaded with silver bullets.
This troper heard of a tale similar to the one described above but the bullet wasn't silver, it was "blessed" and the woman claimed her hand was maimed from a occupational hazard, I can't remember what though.
I think that story originated simply with the werewolf's paw being severed through a knife (very similar to the film) and was then updated in later versions (like most folklore) after silver was added as harming them.
As far as Suzette (Valerie's mother) knows, everyone she loves except Valerie — Henry's father Adrien, Lucie, and Valerie's father (though whether or not she truly loved him was debatable)— is dead, and Valerie has moved into the woods, and very well may vanish herself in the near future. Poor thing.
A different sort of Fridge Horror comes up when you realize the film implies Cesaire very well may have turned his own mother into stew, which Valerie eats a bite of before stopping herself. Something very similar to this happens in older versions of Red Riding Hood.
Plus, remember Lucie being in love with Henry? Well, this means that she had a crush on her half-brother. Which is stated outright from Suzette as to why she put Valerie together with him instead.
She probably doesn't even know Henry is related to her.
