goldilocks has been a part of most children’s lives in the western part of this world for a long, long time now. in fact its first known appearance was made over 170 years ago when the romantic poet robert southey (most widely known for his massive works of prose/poetry) published a sort of prose story named the three bears in a larger collection of his writing named “the doctor”.
the story is simple but for those of you who have either never read it, heard it, or heard of it, here it is:
a family of three bears (a mother, a father, and a cub) live in a quiet house in the woods. one day, while waiting for their porridge to cool, they leave the house unlocked and go for a walk in the woods. while they are out, goldilocks comes to the house. she enters the bear’s house and messes with their belongings, trying out their porridge (eating all of the baby's), sitting on their chairs (breaking the baby's), and then trying out their beds (falling asleep in the baby's).
every member of the bear family has their own unique chair, porridge, and bed, which have unique characteristics. the father and mother's beds and chairs are "too hard" and "too soft" and their porridge is "too hot" and "too cold", with the baby bear's porridge, chair, and bed being "just right". goldilocks is still asleep in the baby's bed when the bears return home. they wake her up, and scare her away.
if you’d like to read a real beauty then this version from 1941 is for you!
here’s a lovely, old animated version of the goldilocks story .
and here, believe it or not . . . goldilocks and the three bears told with real live bears and an almost unbearably sweet girl . . .
4 comments:
Just precious, Steven. I wonder if you are familiar with James Thurber's version of Little Red Riding Hood?
This one?
The Little Girl and the Wolf by James Thurber
One afternoon a big wolf waited in a dark forest for a little girl to come along carrying a basket of food to her grandmother. Finally a little girl did come along and she was carrying a basket of food. "Are you carrying that basket to your grandmother?" asked the wolf. The little girl said yes, she was. So the wolf asked her where her grandmother lived and the little girl told him and he disappeared into the wood.
When the little girl opened the door of her grandmother's house she saw that there was somebody in bed with a nightcap and nightgown on. She had approached no nearer than twenty-five feet from the bed when she saw that it was not her grandmother but the wolf, for even in a nightcap a wolf does not look any more like your grandmother than the Metro-Goldwyn lion looks like Calvin Coolidge. So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead.
(Moral: It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be.) Absolutely!!!! Steven
That's the one! Sometimes the moral of his story is funnier than the story itself! Like the "Don't count your boobies before they're hatched", or some such, the moral of the Unicorn in the Garden.
enthralled onlookers to this exchange between the goldenrod and the golden fish may wish to know that the james thurber story to which goldenrod refers goes something like this:
James Thurber from Fables For Our Time
Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him.
"The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; now he was browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn," said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he said,"ate a lily." His wife sat up in bed and looked at him coldly. "You are a booby," she said, "and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch."
The man, who had never liked the words "booby" and "booby-hatch," and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. "We'll see about that," he said. He walked over to the door. "He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead," he told her. Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away. The man sat down among the roses and went to sleep.
As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist arrived they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest.
"My husband," she said, "saw a unicorn this morning." The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. "He told me it ate a lilly," she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. "He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead," she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.
"Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the police. "Of course not," said the husband. "The unicorn is a mythical beast." "That's all I wanted to know," said the psychiatrist. "Take her away. I'm sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jaybird."
So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after.
Moral: Don't count your boobies until they are hatched."
I didn't know about this one!! Hilarious!! Excellent!
Steven
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