The Three Bears ©2020 - A road trip to The Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Morris County NJ provided the background image and inspiration for this piece. The bears and fish were photographed at The Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange NJ, the butterfly in Pottersville NJ and the “bear’s cottage” is the caretaker’s house from a cemetery near Long Valley NJ. My “Goldilocks” is a composite of two vintage photos from my collection and the crow is one of many from my travels. As I’m sure you have surmised by now, this montage is loosely based on the fairy tale “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”. It’s original title, “The Story of the Three Bears”, was first recorded in narrative form and published by British writer and poet Robert Southey in 1837. Prior to that, the story was only in circulation by word of mouth. As it goes, three bears live together in a house in the woods. Each bear has his own porridge bowl, chair and bed. One day at breakfast, the porridge is too hot to eat and they take a walk while it cools off. While they are out, a vagrant old woman called Silver Hair enters the house, eats the smallest bear’s porridge, sits in his chair and breaks it, then falls asleep in his bed. When the bears return and discover her and the damage she has done, she wakes, jumps out the window and is never seen again. The earliest written version was a poem by Eleanor Mure in 1831. It was handcrafted into a book complete with watercolor illustrations as a gift for her nephew, Horace Broke. In her version, the infuriated bears, after finding the woman, throw her into a fire and then into water before finally impaling her on top of St. Paul’s Cathedral and leaving her there. In 1849, Joseph Cundall published the story in his Treasury of Pleasure Books for Young Children and changed the antagonist from an old woman to a young girl to make it more appealing to children. In versions after that, she has remained a young girl although her name has gone from Silver Hair to Little Silver Hair, Golden Hair, Goldenlocks and finally, Goldilocks. Her fate in the end varies in the different versions from running into the forrest, being almost eaten by the bears, to becoming good friends with the bears. I think all would be more appealing than being impaled as in Muer’s version! In mine, the bears discuss the fate of their intruder as Goldilocks, entangled by the swamp, awaits their decision. A local crow takes pity on her and tries to give advice while a resident fish seems too enthralled by a butterfly to be bothered with any of this. And always, as the viewer, you are entitled to your own interpretation.
