Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Told by Joseph JacobsEnglandTale type ATU 171
- Age
- 3 to 7
- Reading time
- 6 minutes
- Scariness
- 1 of 5Mild tension, resolved at once
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The story
Once there were three bears who lived together in a small cottage in a wood.
There was a Great Big Bear with a great big gruff voice, and a Middle Bear with a middling sort of voice, and a Little Bear with a small high voice that squeaked when he got excited, which was often.
One morning they made porridge for breakfast, and it was far too hot to eat.
"We shall go for a walk," said the Great Big Bear, "and it will be cool when we get back."
So they went out, and they left the door open, because it was that sort of wood and they were that sort of bears.
Now, there was a girl in that wood that morning with hair the colour of butter, and everybody called her Goldilocks, and she had been walking for rather a long time.
She came round the trees and there was a cottage with the door standing open and a smell of porridge coming out of it.
She knocked. Nobody answered.
She knocked again, and looked in, and it was so tidy and so warm and there was nobody in it at all.
So she went in.
On the table were three bowls of porridge, and Goldilocks was extremely hungry.
She tried the great big bowl, and it was too hot, and she said so out loud even though there was nobody to hear her.
She tried the middle bowl, and it was too cold.
She tried the little bowl, and it was exactly right, and she ate all of it. Every bit. She scraped round the edges.
Then she wanted to sit down.
There was a great big chair, and she climbed up into it, and it was far too hard.
There was a middle chair, and she sat in that, and it was far too soft, and she sank right down into the cushion and had to wriggle out.
There was a little chair, just her size, and she sat down in it and it fitted her perfectly.
And then it broke.
It went straight through underneath her and she landed on the floor with the pieces round her, and she sat there for a moment feeling quite strange about it.
Then, because she was tired, she went upstairs.
There were three beds. The great big bed had a bolster at the head that was too high. The middle bed had a footboard that was too high. The little bed was exactly right, all of it, and Goldilocks lay down in it and pulled the blanket up and went straight to sleep.
And then the bears came home.
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN EATING MY PORRIDGE," said the Great Big Bear, in his great big gruff voice.
"Somebody has been eating my porridge," said the Middle Bear, in her middling voice.
"Somebody has been eating my porridge," squeaked the Little Bear, "and they have eaten it all up."
Then they looked at the chairs.
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN SITTING IN MY CHAIR."
"Somebody has been sitting in my chair."
"Somebody has been sitting in my chair," said the Little Bear, and his voice went very small, "and they have broken it right through."
And nobody said anything for a moment, because that was the one that could not be mended.
Then they went upstairs.
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN LYING IN MY BED."
"Somebody has been lying in my bed."
"Somebody has been lying in my bed," squeaked the Little Bear, "and she is still there!"
Goldilocks woke up with three bears standing round the bed looking at her.
She did not scream. She sat straight up and looked at all three of them, and then at the small bear with the very upset face, and she went red to the ears.
"Was that your chair?" she said.
"Yes," said the Little Bear.
Goldilocks got out of the bed and went past all three of them and down the stairs and out of the open door and away through the trees, and she did not stop until she got home.
But she came back.
Not that day. It took her three days to work herself up to it. She came back with a small wooden stool her father had helped her make, which was not as good as the chair had been and was the best she could do, and she stood in the doorway holding it and could not think of a single thing to say.
"Well," said the Great Big Bear, in his great big gruff voice. "You had better come in, then."
And the porridge that morning was exactly right.
What is the moral of Goldilocks and the Three Bears?
Other people's things are still theirs even when they are not there.
This is the smallest and most useful moral in the whole collection. Goldilocks does not do anything wicked. She is hungry and tired and the door is open, and every single thing she does is the sort of thing a small child does without thinking. The story is not about a bad girl. It is about the specific, uncomfortable moment when you realise that the thing you helped yourself to belonged to somebody, and that they have just walked in.
Talk about it
- Goldilocks did not mean to do anything wrong. Does that make it alright?
- How do you think the Little Bear felt about his chair?
- Goldilocks runs away at the end. What could she have done instead?
- The door was open. Does that mean she was invited in?
- Has anyone ever used something of yours without asking? How did it feel?
Who is in the story
Goldilocks
protagonist · human
Hungry, tired, and standing in front of an open door with nobody behind it.
- Kind
- 7 out of 10
- Brave
- 7 out of 10
- Clever
- 5 out of 10
- Honest
- 8 out of 10
- Curious
- 10 out of 10
- Patient
- 2 out of 10
The Great Big Bear
supporting · bear
A very large bear with a very large voice, who turns out to be the gentlest one in the house.
- Kind
- 10 out of 10
- Brave
- 7 out of 10
- Clever
- 6 out of 10
- Honest
- 9 out of 10
- Curious
- 4 out of 10
- Patient
- 9 out of 10
The Little Bear
deuteragonist · bear
Loses his breakfast, his chair and his bed, in that order, and it is his chair that everybody goes quiet about.
- Kind
- 9 out of 10
- Brave
- 6 out of 10
- Clever
- 6 out of 10
- Honest
- 10 out of 10
- Curious
- 8 out of 10
- Patient
- 3 out of 10
The Middle Bear
supporting · bear
Middling voice, middling chair, and the one who notices things first.
- Kind
- 9 out of 10
- Brave
- 7 out of 10
- Clever
- 9 out of 10
- Honest
- 9 out of 10
- Curious
- 7 out of 10
- Patient
- 8 out of 10
In a nutshell
Three bears go out for a walk while their porridge cools. A girl called Goldilocks finds their door open and lets herself in, and tries everything in the house until she finds the one that suits her. Then she falls asleep, and they come home.
Scene by scene
20 moments from the tale.
- Scene 1The Bears' Cottageordinary
Far too hot to eat
The porridge is too hot, so the three bears go out for a walk and leave the door open behind them.
So they left the door open
- Scene 2The Beech Woodunhurried
That sort of wood
Three bears set off along the path while the porridge cools. The Middle Bear looks back once at the cottage. The door stays exactly as it is.
Nobody thought to shut it
- Scene 3The Beech Woodfootsore
Walking for rather a long time
A girl comes along the same path from the other direction, boots caked with wood mud, stopping to shake a stone out of one of them.
Hair the colour of butter
- Scene 4The Beech Woodarrested
A smell of porridge coming out
She comes round the trees and stops. There is a thatched cottage in the clearing with its door wide open, and something on the air that stops her walking.
The door was standing open
- Scene 5The Bears' Cottageinnocent
She knocked twice
Goldilocks knocks, gets no answer, looks in, and decides the open door counts as an invitation.
Nobody answered, and the door was open
- Scene 6The Bears' Cottagematter of fact
She said so out loud
She reaches the biggest bowl first, burns her tongue on it, and announces the fact to a completely empty room.
Nobody there to hear her
- Scene 7The Bears' Cottagesatisfied
Exactly right
Too hot, too cold, and then the little bowl is exactly right and she eats every bit of it.
She scraped round the edges
- Scene 8The Bears' Cottagerestless
Too hard, and too soft
The great big chair is like sitting on a step. The middle chair takes her in up to the shoulders and does not want to give her back.
She had to wriggle out
- Scene 9The Bears' Cottagesinking
And then it broke
The little chair fits her perfectly, and then goes straight through, and she sits on the floor among the pieces.
It went straight through underneath her
- Scene 10The Bears' Cottagepeaceful
Straight to sleep
A bolster too high in one bed and a footboard too high in the next, and then a small bed that is right in every particular, and she is asleep almost at once.
Exactly right, all of it
- Scene 11The Beech Woodunsuspecting
And then the bears came home
Three bears come back along the path in the other direction, pleased with the morning, with the cottage ahead of them and the door where they left it.
It will be cool by now
- Scene 12The Bears' Cottagerising
Somebody has been eating my porridge
The bears come home and work through the bowls in order of size, and the Little Bear adds the part that matters.
Three voices, three sizes
- Scene 13The Bears' Cottagethe quiet bit
His voice went very small
At the chairs the Little Bear's squeak drops, and nobody says anything for a moment.
That was the one that could not be mended
- Scene 14The Bears' Cottagedawning
Then they went upstairs
While the other two are still standing over the pieces of the little chair, the Middle Bear turns round and looks at the staircase. Then all three of them go up it.
She looked at the stairs first
- Scene 15The Bears' Cottageastonished
And she is still there
Three bears stop in the bedroom doorway and look at three beds. The smallest one starts his line as usual and then finds there is more of it than there should be.
The end of the sentence keeps going
- Scene 16The Bears' Cottagemortified
Was that your chair?
Goldilocks wakes to three bears round the bed, does not scream, and asks the smallest one a direct question.
She went red to the ears
- Scene 17The Beech Woodfleeing
She did not stop until she got home
She goes down the stairs, out through the open door, and away between the beech trunks. Nothing follows her. She runs anyway, all the way home.
Past all three of them and out
- Scene 18The Lean-To At Homestubborn
One leg shorter than the others
In a cold shed against the side of the house she saws three legs for a stool. One comes out short. She saws the other two down to match it and makes it worse.
It took her three days
- Scene 19The Lean-To At Homeresolved
On the third day
The stool is finished on the third afternoon. It stands square, it does not wobble much, and it is nothing like the chair was. She takes her coat off the nail.
The best she could do
- Scene 20The Bears' Cottagewarm
You had better come in, then
Three days later Goldilocks comes back with a stool she made, and cannot think of anything to say.
It took her three days
Where it happens
The Bears' Cottage
cottage
Small, thatched, spotless, and everything in it comes in threes.
The Beech Wood
forest
Sunny, open and not remotely frightening, which is unusual for a wood in these stories.
The Lean-To At Home
workshop
A cold sloping shed against the side of her mother's house, where a stool gets made badly and slowly over three days.
How they are connected
GoldilocksThe Little Bearfriend
Every single thing she used was his, and he is the one who says so quietly.
GoldilocksThe Great Big Bearneighbour
The loudest voice in the story says the kindest thing in it.
GoldilocksThe Middle Bearneighbour
The bear who spots every single thing she did, and the only one who works out why she did it.
Things you might not know
In the oldest oral version the intruder is not a girl but a fox called Scrapefoot, and the three bears live in a castle.
The first printed version, by Robert Southey in 1837, has a rude old woman rather than a child. She is thrown out of a window and the story ends there.
She only became a girl in 1849, and she was called Silver-Hair first. The name Goldilocks did not settle until decades later.
In Southey's version and Jacobs' after it, the three bears are not a family. They are simply three bears of different sizes who live together. The mummy-daddy-baby version came later.
Scientists use the phrase Goldilocks zone for the orbit around a star where a planet is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water. The story named a region of space.
Folklorists file it as ATU 171, and it is unusual among famous tales for being relatively young. Most of the others are centuries older.
The broken chair is the only thing in the story that cannot be fixed. That is why this retelling has her bring back a stool rather than an apology.
Almost every version ends with Goldilocks running away and never returning. Leaving the broken chair unresolved is a strange choice for a story about other people's things.
What things stand for
- The three of everything
- A whole family, laid out where anyone can see it. Goldilocks is walking through somebody's life, one object at a time.
- The broken chair
- The one thing that cannot be put back. Everything else she did could be tidied away.
- The open door
- An invitation only if you decide it is one.
- The empty bowl
- Not just eaten. Finished, so there is none left for the person it belonged to.
The same story elsewhere
Folk tales are not owned by whoever wrote them down first.
Scrapefoot
England, oral, pre-1837
The intruder is a fox called Scrapefoot, and the bears live in a castle rather than a cottage.
The Story of the Three Bears
England, 1837
Southey's printed version, in which the intruder is an unpleasant old woman who is thrown out of the window.
Silver-Hair
England, 1849
The first version where the intruder becomes a girl, initially called Silver-Hair rather than Goldilocks.
Snow-White and Rose-Red bear tales
Germany, 1812
A different tale entirely, but the earliest European stories of a bear entering a human home, or the reverse, are widespread.
Where you might already know it from
Most children meet a screen version first. Here is what those changed.
The Story of the Three Bears
book, Robert Southey, 1837
The first printed version. The intruder is not a girl at all but a rude old woman, and there is no apology and no coming back.
Scrapefoot
book, Traditional, collected by Joseph Jacobs, 1894
An older oral version in which the intruder is a fox and the three bears live in a castle.
Countless cartoon versions
animation, Various
Nearly all end with Goldilocks running away and never returning, which leaves the broken chair unresolved.
Questions parents ask
- What is the moral of Goldilocks and the Three Bears?
- Other people's things are still theirs even when they are not there.
- What is Goldilocks and the Three Bears about?
- Three bears go out for a walk while their porridge cools. A girl called Goldilocks finds their door open and lets herself in, and tries everything in the house until she finds the one that suits her. Then she falls asleep, and they come home.
- What age is Goldilocks and the Three Bears for?
- Goldilocks and the Three Bears suits ages 3-7.
- How long does Goldilocks and the Three Bears take to read?
- About 6 minutes read aloud.
- Where does Goldilocks and the Three Bears come from?
- Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a traditional tale from England.
Sing it
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