The Messed Up Origins of Goldilocks and the Three Bears | Fables Explained - Jon Solo

[Music] what is going on solo fam my name is John solo and welcome to another episode of messed up origins the show where we shed light on the truly messed up history of some of your favorite childhood stories last episode we broke down Humpty Dumpty pun intended and I asked you guys if I should make fables explained a regular thing your response was an overwhelming yes so today we're diving into the history of another famous nursery rhyme can you believe it first there was Disney explained then there was crypt fables explained and now there's fables explained who would have thought that one day we would have three messed up series I'm pretty excited about that and also a dork so for today's episode I chose a story where the number three was a recurring theme Goldilocks and the three bears get excited because today's installment is gonna be like no other after we do our quickie review of the modern day version we have not one not two but you guessed it three other versions to break down and each one is messed up in its own special way before we get started I'm gonna ask the solo fam to do what you guys do fast and smash that like button with all your heart last week's episode I set the week's goal to 7,000 likes and you guys got two over 10,000 likes in less than two days so let's see if we can do that again also don't forget to subscribe and ring that Bell to be notified about new messed up content coming to your sub box every week although there's been several different versions of the Goldilocks story over the past few centuries the one that we're all familiar with hasn't really changed in quite some time it starts with a little girl named Goldilocks going for a walk in the forest and discovering a house after she knocks and no one answers she just lets herself in because she has no manners or sense of privacy she sees three bowls of porridge on the dinner table and tries each one the first one is too hot the second is too cold but the third is just right so she eats it all after finishing the food that wasn't hers Goldilocks decides that she needs a rest and sits down in the great big chair that she finds in the next room only that chair was too big so she tried the next one and that one was too big too just like the porridge her third option was just right for her but after she settled down into it it broke into pieces she goes upstairs to find a new place to rest and discovers three beds the first one is too hard the second is too soft but the third say it with me is just right Goldilocks get so comfy in the bed that she passes out and doesn't hear the owners of the house walk in and discover their home's been vandalized and their foods beneath they look around the first floor and continue their investigation upstairs to find Goldilocks fast asleep and baby bears bad at that very moment she wakes up to see momma and Papa Bear staring right at her and naturally she responds by screaming at the top of her lungs running out of the house and never bothering them again so that is how most people today know the story of Goldilocks and the three bears but there have been many changes made to that story since its inception back in the 1700s in like most of the stories we cover on this show the history of Goldilocks is complicated so we're gonna go one step at a time back in time to 1837 when the story was published for the very first time the first man to receive credit for putting this fable on paper was Robert Southey an English poet and author who included it in his collection of stories called the doctor which he initially published anonymously now his version actually is not the most messed up that we'll be talking about today but it's an important chapter of the Goldilocks legacy and there's a few details that are unique to it so it's worth us going over unlike the modern-day tale south east version opens up from the Bears perspective they've just made themselves a nice porridge breakfast and decided to go out for a walk while it cools down also unlike the modern tale these three bears are not related instead of Papa mama and baby bear it's great huge bear middle-sized bear and little small wee bear needless to say I'm gonna be abbreviating those well the roommates were out on their walk a little old woman came creeping up to their house and Southey emphasizes that she could not have been a good or honest old woman because she first looked through the windows to make sure the Bears weren't home and then she just opened the door so instead of the intruder character being an innocent little girl with beautiful golden hair Southie had first written her as a dishonest old woman the events that follow after she lets herself in the house are basically the same as the story we all know the biggest difference is whenever this old lady tries something she doesn't like whether it's the cold porridge or the hard chair she says a bad or wicked word about it yeah in place of Goldilocks we have an old hag who constantly swears isn't that nice anyways she eats the little bears food breaks chair and passes out in this bag when the bears returned home soon after they are furious when they discover someone's broken in and when they go upstairs they find that rude old woman sleeping soundly you might think she would have woken up from the Bears angry roars but that didn't faze her when the big bear roared she heard him in her dream as the sound of thunder when the middle bear did the same she heard him as the sound of a human talking it wasn't until the little bear chimed in with his sharp high-pitched roar that the woman was finally jolted away and after realizing she was surrounded by three bears she perceiving the scream and jump out the window as for what happened to her after we'll never know because when the bears looked out the window to see where she landed she had already disappeared into the forest and they never saw her again now that ladies and gentlemen was the first version of the story to ever be published and reproduced but the fable didn't gain its famous reputation right away it didn't receive any special attention until later that same year when another author named George nickel republished the story in his own book which was better suited for children and credited Southie is the original author and then in 1848 it was republished again this time with illustrations and its place as a classic children's tale was solidified but we're not done yet there's two more versions of the story I think you guys would really really enjoy hearing and what makes them especially fascinating is they both came before southeast version one common trait that a lot of these nursery rhymes seem to have is they originated as stories that were shared orally whether as a bedtime story from a parent to a child or from one friend to another just as a way to pass the time you might find this hard to believe but originally Goldilocks was told as a scary story called the three bears now this wasn't always the case and it would largely depend on the audience but people found ways to make this suppose a children's story scary I would imagine they really put emphasis on the part where the intruder wakes up from her nap to find herself surrounded by a group of angry bears kind of like how The Simpsons did it you might also be surprised to hear there's one particular woman who became famous solely through being a loving aunt and sharing this story with her nephew her name was Eleanor mirror and in 1831 she gave her nephew Horace broke a handmade copy of the book with her own version of the story insider you'll notice from the year this was actually before Robert southies version was published in 1837 like I said he was the first person to have the story published and reproduced but Eleanor actually beat him when it came to making it into a book only hers was a single copy and obviously meant as a very personal gift not something to manufacture and make money off of for the most part the stories are pretty similar Eleanor did go through the effort of first fiying it making it rhyme and illustrating it but when it comes to the events that take place only some smaller details have been altered for example in southeast version the old woman has no motivation for getting into the bears house she's just wrote but a near story the old woman tried visiting the bears when they were home and they wouldn't let her in she took that rejection and very personally and decided she was gonna see the inside of their house but they wanted her - or not the story precedes exactly how you'd expect until the end when the Bears returned home this woman actually doesn't even get to nap in the little bears bed because after she laid on at the bottom bursts through and once she got up she saw the Bears walking back through the window naturally she was terrified so she hid in the closet hoping the Bears wouldn't find her and she was forced to sit there and listen as they went room to room getting angrier and angrier about the vandalism she caused it wasn't long before the Bears found her and took it upon themselves to punish their nosy neighbor at first they tried burning her alive but for some reason she wouldn't burn then they tried drowning her but she couldn't be drowned so they took the old hag who at this point was charred and soaking wet and threw her on the steeple of st. Paul's Church where she was impaled and left to die while the Bears had a dance party apparently a pretty gruesome ending to a book that was supposed to be for her four-year-old nephews birthday but one thing we've learned in this series is that people from back in the day had a very different definition of child appropriate honestly I don't know if they even had the phrase regardless the Goldilocks story both Eleanor and southeast versions were commonly told the children around England including Southie himself it's widely believed that when he was young Southie originally heard the story of the three bears from his uncle only that version was different in one distinct way the intruder character was a female Fox named scrape foot John are you tell me that before Goldilocks was an innocent little girl she was a conniving old lady and before that she was a fox how did that change happen I'm glad you said something because that's actually what I wanted to mention next what a coincidence there's a theory out there that whenever Robert Southey first heard the story he thought the word vixen was referring to a crafty old woman when really it was referring to a female Fox others think he made the change on his own but I prefer a combination of those theories according to some witnesses Robert Southey was overheard sharing the story with some friends in a public venue in 1813 I find it kind of hard to believe he was openly telling the story to people more than eighteen years before his was published and he never got corrected I'm more inclined to believe that at some point one of his buddies did correct him on it but he still thought that an old lady character sounded better than a fox which it really does when it comes to differences in this great foot story it's kind of hard to give specifics because we only have a rough idea of how it actually went and that basically follows the Ellenor mirror version right up until the end after the Bears catch scrape foot and failed to burn or alive or drown her instead of impaling her on a church steeple they just threw her out a window she survives the fall without breaking a single bone because she's an agile Fox and decides she's never going near the Bears house again and that's how the story ends one thing I like about these Nursery Rhymes is unlike the Disney stories which usually go from original version to Disney five these stories slowly evolve for example the intruder character was a fox throughout who knows how many decades this story was told and then one guy confusing vixen to mean old lady changes the story forever because if the character was never an old lady the guy responsible for changing her to an innocent little girl in 1850 Joseph kondal might never have done it his whole reason for the change was that in his opinion there was already enough stories about old women he also made the decision to give his new character the name silver hair because that's how a lot of people referred to her when she was an old lady a few of her other names throughout the years include silver hair silver locks silver hair is one word golden hair is two words silver hair again golden locks as one word little golden hair and finally in 1904 her name was permanently changed to Goldilocks that time the fate of Goldilocks also changed in some stories after getting discovered she just runs into the forest and has never seen again in others she's about to get eaten by the bears when her mom rescues her and in others she just gets eat and that solo fan was every significant addition of the Goldilocks story that we know about so now I want to hear your thoughts and which edition was your favorite personally I liked Eleanor Mears version the best because that ending was everything I loved about these old stories excessively savage and out of nowhere I had expected the Bears to try and eat their intruder not try and burn them alive or drown them but guess I was wrong if you enjoyed this episode of messed-up origins and want to help the series and solo fam grow make sure to smash that like button with all your heart so we can reach our goal of 10,000 likes by the end of the week it's a bold goal but I think you're up for the challenge also make sure to subscribe and ring that valve to be notified about new messed up content just like this being set to your sub box and every week and of course if you want to stay updated on messed up origins news what projects I'm working on next or if you just want to chat you can follow me on social media I got the links in the description down below thank you all for watching solo fam I'll be seeing you very soon until then my name is John solo and remember John shot first [Music]

Channel: Jon Solo

Views: 557,048

Rating: 4.9730544 out of 5

Keywords: Messed Up Origins, Messed Up origins of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Goldilocks, The Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, Three Little Pigs, Fables Explained, Crypt Fables Explained, Nursery Rhymes, Goldilocks Original story, Scrapefoot, Eleanor Mure, Joseph Cundall, Robert Southey, Vixen, Mama Bear Papa Bear Baby Bear, Folk Tales, Jon Solo, Disney Explained, Humpty Dumpty, Humpty Dumpty Original story, Scrapefoot story, Disturbing, True Story

Id: w4ZKi8c6mtU

Length: 12min 11sec (731 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 05 2018