The Three Bears

"Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is a traditional classic 19th-century British fairy tale of which three versions exist. The original version of the tale tells of an impudent and bad old woman who enters the forest home of three anthropomorphic bachelor bears while they are away. She eats some of their porridge, sits down on one of their chairs, breaks it, and sleeps in one of their beds. When the bears return and discover her, they see her wake up and jump out of the window, and she is never seen again. The second version replaces the old woman with a young, naive, blonde-haired girl named Goldilocks; and the third and by far best-known version replaces the bachelor bears with a family of three: a father bear, a mother bear, and a baby bear. The story has elicited various interpretations and has been adapted to film, opera, and other media. "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is one of the most popular fairy tales in the English language.