Three Bears

The Three Bears, illustrated by Charles Robinson

Three Bears is today more known as Goldilocks and Three Bears or simply Goldilocks. This version is older. We'll see why Goldilock is omitted from the title and what else is different from the contemporary variation of the same tale.

First of all - this is not a fairy tale because it doesn't possess the crucial elements of the genre, especially the transformation of one or more main characters. It's a story about an intrusion into one's home without fatal consequences. We could classify it as a cautionary tale, but the publisher included it in the book with fairy tales (not the first and not the last such example), so here it is.

Charles Robinson made a decorative capital letter for the beginning of the story. The next picture is somehow mysterious. We were already informed about the bear's home, where food was too hot to eat, so they left the house and went for a walk.

But in the meantime, somebody comes by. Somebody who decided to enter the house ...

This is not a cute little girl as one might expect from the title. It's a nosy old lady without respect for other's property.

She sniffs around the house. She eats food from other's table. She tries to sit in other's chairs (and breaks one by the way).

Finally, she tries all the beds in the house before she chooses one to take a nap.

After all, she is allowed for some rest after all the sniffing.

Then the bears return. Food should be cold enough to eat now.

But somebody messed with it! Somebody entered their house and ate their food.

Somebody moved their furniture around and broke one of the chairs.

And somebody tried their beds.

Actually...

Somebody sleeps in one of the beds right now!

The bears are understandably angry. They want to punish the intruder!

Imagine the fear of the old lady when she opened her eyes and saw three grumbling bear faces! She immediately knows what to do. If right and wrong were not her major qualities before, she at least understands the present situation.

It's time to go.

Fast.

Faster.

Who cares about the goodbyes or even the doors?

The first opening in the view will serve just well enough.

So the old woman ran away and the bears lived (hopefully) happily ever after.

As you noticed, we are dealing with an older variation of today's best-known Goldilocks and Three Bears. But this is not the oldest known version.

Three bears are also not the only option. The intruder can invade to homes of other animals (or people) as well.

And we need to say that the three bears were not always represented as a family (father, mother, son). In some variants, they are simply bears. All equal. They became the family for the obvious reason - to be more liked by the audience.

Let's return to the housebreaker. Goldilocks of today was an old crone just about a century ago. While a nosy disrespectful old woman serves better as an intruder in the story, the sale of picture books definitely favors the image of a young girl.

Before that, the trespasser was a fox. It was called Silver-fox which eventually led to a human intruder with silver hair (an old woman).

You may also wonder why is this cautionary tale so successful in the flood of thousands and thousands of cautionary tales produced every day. There are several reasons for that:

- the contrast between good and bad represented in reverse (beasts are victims and cutie little girl acts like a bad boy),
- both parties in the story may be addressed with the message of the cautionary tale: bears should lock the door and the intruder should behave better (or risk being eaten by bears),
- the story has a very lovely rhythm, just perfect for young audiences (Goldilocks indeed became truly popular after being put in verse by Robert Browning).

source:  https://owlcation.com/humanities/goldilocks-and-three-bears

I bet you didn't expect so many new facts about such an old story!