"The Story of the The Three Bears" (often known today as "Goldilocks and the Three Bears") is a children's story first recorded in narrative form by English author and poet Robert Southey and first published in a volume of his writings in 1837. The same year, writer George Nicol published a version in rhyme based upon Southey's prose tale, with Southey approving the attempt to bring the story more exposure. Both versions tell of three bears and an old woman who trespasses upon their property.

The story of the three bears was in circulation before the publication of Southey's version. In 1831, for example, Eleanor Mure fashioned a handmade booklet about the three bears for her nephew's birthday, and, in 1894, "Scrapefoot", a tale with a fox as antagonist, was uncovered by the folklorist Joseph Jacobs. "Scrapefoot" bears striking similarities to Southey's tale, and may have predated it in the oral tradition. Southey possibly heard the tale, and confused its "vixen" with a synonym for a crafty old woman.

The tale experienced two significant changes during its early publication history. Southey's elderly antagonist morphed into a pretty little girl called Goldilocks, and his three male bears became Father, Mother, and Baby Bear. What was originally a fearsome oral tale became a cozy family story with only a hint of menace. The story has seen various interpretations and has been adapted to board game format, film, opera, and other media. "The Story of the Three Bears" is one of the most popular fairy tales in the English language.

Origins

In 1837, the British poet Robert Southey recorded "The Story of The Three Bears" in narrative form, and inserted it into volume four of his anonymous collection of linked essays, The Doctor. In this story, three anthropomorphic male bears—"a Little, Small, Wee Bear, a Middle-sized Bear, and a Great, Huge Bear"—live together in a house in the woods. Southey describes them as very good-natured, trusting, harmless, tidy, and hospitable. Each bear has his own porridge pot, chair, and bed. One day they take a walk in the woods while their porridge cools. An old woman (who is described at various points in the story as impudent, bad, foul-mouthed, ugly, dirty and a vagrant deserving of a stint in the House of Correction) discovers the bears' dwelling. After assuring herself no one is about, she enters the house. The old woman eats the Wee Bear's porridge, then settles into his chair and breaks it. Prowling about, she finds the bear's beds and falls asleep in Wee Bear's bed. The climax of the tale is reached when the bears return. Wee Bear finds the old woman in his bed and cries, "Somebody has been lying in my bed,—and here she is!" The old woman starts up, jumps from the window, and is never seen again.

Robert Southey The tale had never appeared in print before and the reading public assumed that it originated with Southey. Southey however was simply retelling a popular tale which apparently had been in circulation for some time. In 1831, for example, thirty-two-year-old Miss Eleanor Mure presented a handmade booklet styled, "The Story of The Three Bears, metrically related, with illustrations locating it at Cecil Lodge in September 1831" as a birthday gift to her four-year-old nephew Horace Broke. Mure described her version as "the celebrated Nursery Tale...put into verse" indicating the possible existence of an earlier prose version. Mure's antagonist is an "angry old woman" who, unlike Southey's antagonist, has a motive for invading the bears' home: her courtesy visit is rebuffed by the bears and, in a pique, she decides to inspect their home anyway. Mure's version differs further from Southey in that the bears' pots are filled with milk rather than porridge. At the end of the tale, the bears try first to burn the old woman, then to drown her, and, being unsuccessful in both attempts on her life, finally "chuck her aloft on St. Paul's church-yard steeple". Southey's old woman jumps out a window and runs away.