Information About ™The Three Bears |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT THE THREE BEARS | |
| 1837 short stories | |
| bears in literature | |
| childrens literature | |
| european folklore | |
| fairy tales | |
| fictional bears | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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The Three Bears is a notable children's bedtime story. Though it is often considered an anonymous folk story, even one of those collected by the Brothers Grimm , it actually first saw print in 1837 in the poet Robert Southey's book ''The Doctor''. George Nicol retold Southey's story in verse. Possibly based on an even older story (though this is by no means certain), the story became widely known after being published by Southey, and was so often retold, that it has lost connection to its author. Southey's story included the three bears, but the visitor to the bear's home was "an old woman"; later versions of the story replaced the old woman with a girl named Silver-hair. Goldilocks first appeared in 1904 in ''Old Nursery Stories and Rhymes''. The story was humourously adapted into a popular song in 1946 by songwriter Bobby Troup . This song is often erroneously credited as being by "anonymous". For other variants of The Three Bears see The Three Bears (disambiguation) QUOTATIONS
:Someone’s been eating my porridge said the daddy bear, :Someone’s been eating my porridge said the mama bear, :Hey Ba-ba Re-bear said the little wee bear someone has broken my chair! HYPOTHETICAL PREHISTORIC ORIGINS OF THE STORY The story has the feel of a traditional story, and many have assumed that Southey adapted it from European folklore. Some scholars have hypothesized that the story goes back even to Paleolithic times, when Cave Bear s were honored in Shrines deep inside Caverns . In these shrines, the skulls of sacrificed bears were set up in places of honor, and food offerings were placed in front of them. Perhaps in some original version of the story, some impious person committed Sacrilege by eating from these ritual offerings, and the spirits of the vengeful bears tore him to pieces. Over the millennia, the story could have been softened from these gruesome origins, until we come to 20th century versions in which the intruder is always a sweet but rumbunctious little girl named Goldilocks , who always escapes and is sometimes reconciled with the Bears. Despite this attempt to explain a traditional story's origins, there is no record of the story preceding Southey's publication in 1837. REFERENCES
SEE ALSO Goldilocks And The Three Bears EXTERNAL LINKS
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