The story of Rudolph is primarily known to us through the lyrics of Johnny Marks' song (which provides only the barest outlines of Rudolph's story) and the 1964 television special. The story Robert May wrote is substantially different from both of them in a number of ways.
Rudolph was neither one of Santa's reindeer nor the offspring of one of Santa's reindeer, and he did not live at the North Pole. Rudolph dwelled in an "ordinary" reindeer village elsewhere, and although he was taunted and laughed at for having a shiny red nose, he was not regarded by his parents as a shameful embarrassment; Rudolph was brought up in a loving household and was a responsible reindeer with a good self-image and sense of worth. Moreover, Rudolph also did not rise to fame when Santa picked him out from a reindeer herd because of his shiny nose; instead, Santa discovered the red-nosed reindeer quite by accident, when he noticed the glow emanating from Rudolph's room while he was delivering presents to Rudolph's house. Worried that the thickening fog that night (already the cause of several accidents and delays) would keep him from completing his Christmas Eve rounds, Santa tapped Rudolph to lead his team, which the young reindeer agreed to do, after first stopping to complete one last task: leaving behind a note for his mother and father.
As Ronald Lankford noted in his cultural history of American Christmas songs, Rudolph's story was a classic reflection of American values during the 1940s and beyond: