The Story of the Three Bears

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ONCE upon a time there were Three Bears, who lived together in a house of their own, in a wood. One of them was a Little, Small, Wee Bear; and one was a Middle-sized Bear, and the other was a Great, Huge Bear. They each had a pot for their porridge, a little pot for the Little, Small, Wee Bear, and a middle-sized pot for the Middle Bear, and a great pot for the Great, Huge Bear. And they each had a chair to sit in; a little chair for the Little, Small, Wee Bear; and a middle-sized chair for the Middle Bear; and a great chair for the Great, Huge Bear. And they each had a bed to sleep in; a little bed for the Little, Small, Wee Bear; and a middle-sized bed for the Middle Bear; and a great bed for the Great, Huge Bear.

One day, after they had made the porridge for their breakfast, and poured it into their porridge-pots, they walked out into the wood while the porridge was cooling, that they might not burn their mouths, by beginning too soon to eat it. And while they were walking, a little old Woman came to the house. She could not have been a good, honest old Woman; for first she looked in at the window, and then she peeped in at the keyhole; and seeing nobody in the house, she lifted the latch. The door was not fastened, because the Bears were good Bears, who did nobody any harm, and never suspected that anybody would harm them. So the little old Woman opened the door, and went in; and well pleased she was when she saw the porridge on the table. If she had been a good little old Woman, she would have waited till the Bears came home, and then, perhaps, they would have asked her to breakfast; for they were good Bears — a little rough or so, as the manner of Bears is, but for all that very good-natured and hospitable. But she was an impudent, bad old Woman, and set about helping herself.

So first she tasted the porridge of the Great, Huge Bear, and that was too hot for her; and she said a bad word about that. And then she tasted the porridge of the Middle Bear, and that was too cold for her; and she said a bad word about that, too. And then she went to the porridge of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, and tasted that; and that was neither too hot nor too cold, but just right; and she liked it so well that she ate it all up: but the naughty old Woman said a bad word about the little porridge-pot, because it did not hold enough for her.

Then the little old Woman sate down in the chair of the Great, Huge Bear, and that was too hard for her. And then she sate down in the chair of the Middle Bear, and that was too soft for her. And then she sate down in the chair of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, and that was neither too hard, nor too soft, but just right. So she seated herself in it, and there she sate till the bottom of the chair came out, and down she came, plump upon the ground. And the naughty old Woman said a wicked word about that, too.

Then the little old Woman went upstairs into the bed-chamber in which the three Bears slept. And first she lay down upon the bed of the Great, Huge Bear; but that was too high at the head for her. And next she lay down upon the bed of the Middle Bear, and that was too high at the foot for her. And then she lay down upon the bed of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, and that was neither too high at the head nor at the foot, but just right. So she covered herself up comfortably, and lay there till she fell fast asleep.

By this time the Three Bears thought their porridge would be cool enough, so they came home to breakfast. Now the little old Woman had left the spoon of the Great, Huge Bear, standing in his porridge.

‘Somebody has been at my porridge!’

said the Great, Huge Bear, in his great, rough, gruff voice. And when the Middle Bear looked at his, he saw that the spoon was standing in it, too. They were wooden spoons; if they had been silver ones, the naughty old Woman would have put them in her pocket.

‘Somebody has been at my porridge!’

said the Middle Bear in his middle voice.

Then the Little, Small, Wee Bear looked at his, and there was the spoon in the porridge-pot, but the porridge was all gone.

‘Somebody has been at my porridge, and has eaten it all up!’

said the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice.

Upon this the Three Bears, seeing that someone had entered their house, and eaten up the Little, Small, Wee Bear’s breakfast, began to look about them. Now the little old Woman had not put the hard cushion straight when she rose from the chair of the Great, Huge Bear.

‘Somebody has been sitting in my chair!’

said the Great, Huge Bear, in his great, rough, gruff voice.

And the little old Woman had squatted down the soft cushion of the Middle Bear.

‘Somebody has been sitting in my chair!’

said the Middle Bear, in his middle voice.

And you know what the little old Woman had done to the third chair.

‘Somebody has been sitting in my chair and has sate the bottom out of it!’

said the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice.

Then the three Bears thought it necessary that they should make further search; so they went upstairs into their bed-chamber. Now the little old Woman had pulled the pillow of the Great, Huge Bear out of its place.

‘Somebody has been lying in my bed!’

said the Great, Huge Bear, in his great, rough, gruff voice.

And the little old Woman had pulled the bolster of the Middle Bear out of its place.

‘Somebody has been lying in my bed!’

said the Middle Bear, in his middle voice.

And when the Little, Small, Wee Bear came to look at his bed, there was the bolster in its right place, and the pillow in its place upon the bolster; and upon the pillow was the little old Woman’s ugly, dirty head — which was not in its place, for she had no business there.

‘Somebody has been lying in my bed — and here she is!’

said the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice.

The little old Woman had heard in her sleep the great, rough, gruff voice of the Great, Huge Bear; but she was so fast asleep that it was no more to her than the roaring of wind or the rumbling of thunder. And she had heard the middle voice of the Middle Bear, but it was only as if she had heard someone speaking in a dream. But when she heard the little, small, wee voice of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, it was so sharp, and so shrill, that it awakened her at once. Up she started; and when she saw the Three Bears on one side of the bed, she tumbled herself out at the other, and ran to the window. Now the window was open, because the Bears, like good, tidy Bears as they were, always opened their bed-chamber window when they got up in the morning. Out the little old Woman jumped; and whether she broke her neck in the fall; or ran into the wood and was lost there; or found her way out of the wood, and was taken up by the constable and sent to the House of Correction for a vagrant as she was, I cannot tell. But the Three Bears never saw anything more of her.

Jacobs' Notes and References

SOURCE Verbatim et literatim from Southey. The Doctor, &c., quarto edition, p. 327.

PARALLELS None in full, though not invented by Southey. There is an Italian translation, I tre Orsi, Turin, 1868, and it would be curious to see if the tale ever acclimatises itself in Italy. But the incident of sitting in the chairs, etc., is in the Grimms' Schneewitchen.

REMARKS The Three Bears is the only example I know of where a tale that can be definitely traced to a specific author has become a folk-tale. Not alone is this so, but the folk has developed the tale in a curious and instructive way, by substituting a pretty little girl with golden locks for the naughty old woman. In Southey's version there is nothing of little Silverhair as the heroine: she seems to have been introduced in a metrical version by G. N., much bepraised by Southey. Silverhair seems to have become a favourite, and in Mrs Valentine's version of 'The Three Bears' in The Old, Old Fairy Tales, the visit to the bearhouse is only the preliminary to a long succession of adventures of the pretty little girl, of which there is no trace in the original (and this in The Old, Old Fairy Tales. Oh ! Mrs Valentine !). I have, though somewhat reluctantly, cast back to the original form. After all, as Professor Dowden remarks, Southey's memory is kept alive more by 'The Three Bears' than anything else, and the text of such a nursery classic should be retained in all its purity.

Since the first publication of this book I have come across what appears to be the source from which Southey got the story of 'The Three Bears', though it still remains true that the popularity of the story among English children is due to Southey. I have published this interesting version in More English Fairy Tales, under the title of 'Scrapefoot', in which the old woman appears as a fox, so that the story is entirely a beast tale. Now there is found to exist among all countries of Europe a number of tales relating to the feud between the Fox and the Bear (or Wolf). These stories were worked up by a medieval artist into the Beast Epic known as Reynard the Fox. It is probable therefore that 'Scrapefoot', the original of Southey's 'Three Bears', is a survival of the English form of the Beast Epic. Altogether Southey's tale affords an extremely interesting example of the modifications which a story of this kind can undergo. As we have seen above, it has already been developed from its original form in Southey's book by popular tale writers who correspond nowadays to the bards of earlier times. And from the discovery of'Scrapefoot' we learn that Southey changed the fox (or vixen) of the original into an old woman, and thus disguised its representative character as the last survival of the Reynard cycle in English folk-tradition.

Jacobs, Joseph. English Fairy Tales. London: David Nutt, 1890.
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