Is goldilocks a folktale

The Three Bears Before Goldilocks: The History of a Fairy Tale

The story of the Three Bears is a familiar one. A troublesome interloper breaks into the home of three bears. She samples food and breaks furniture before being sent on her way. But, did you know that the housebreaker was originally an old woman, not a little girl named Goldilocks? Or, that the first Three Bears were friends instead of Mama Bear, Papa Bear and Baby Bear?

The Three Bears started as an oral tale and was first written down almost 200 years ago. Over the decades, the story has changed and grown into the tale we know today. Our Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books has materials which reveal the history of The Three Bears story.

Eleanor Mure’s manuscript

Eleanor Mure wrote the first recorded version of The Three Bears story in 1831. Osborne Collection has Mure’s original manuscript, a handmade book created as a gift for her nephew Horace Broke. The story is set at Cecil Lodge, the Mure family estate in Hertfordshire, England. Mure's The Story of Three Bears (1831) (see digitized book or records for our physical copies) is told in verse and illustrated with original watercolours.

The Three Bears discover their milk has been drunk in The Story of the Three Bears (1831).

Described as “the celebrated nursery tale,” the story was shared orally by Mure’s family long before she set it to paper. In Mure’s telling, the Bears are not a family. They are three friends who “fancy a home amongst the dwellings of men.”

The Old Woman is discovered by the Three Bears in The Story of the Three Bears (1831).

Instead of a little girl, the Bears’ house is invaded by an old woman. Mure’s old woman meets a bad end. As punishment for housebreaking, the Bears try to burn and drown the old woman. When nothing works, they “chuck her aloft on St. Paul’s church-yard steeple.” 

The Three Bears celebrate after throwing the old woman atop St. Paul's Cathedral in The Story of the Three Bears (1831).

Robert Southey’s published story

In 1837, English poet Robert Southey released the first printed version of The Three Bears. The story appeared in Southey’s prose anthology The Doctor (1834-47). As with Mure's family, The Three Bears was a popular story among Southey’s family. Southey likely heard The Three Bears from his uncle, William Tyler. Tyler was illiterate, but had a great memory for folktales.

The bears' size difference is illustrated through font in Southey's The Three Bears (1837).

Southey’s story is the first version to discuss the Bears’ size. He introduces the Three Bears as Little, Small, Wee Bear; Middle Bear; and Great, Huge Bear. The story has no illustrations, but the Bears’ size is represented by typography. Great, Huge Bear speaks in large gothic letters. Little, Small, Wee Bear speaks in tiny italics.

Unlike Mure’s telling, the Southey’s bears do not punish the intruding old woman. Instead she makes an escape through an open window. Southey speculates that she might be “sent to the House of Correction” for vagrancy, or perhaps “she broke her neck in the fall.”

The old woman samples the Bears' porridge. From George Nicol's verse adaptation of The Story of the Three Bears (1837) illustrated by Robert Hart.

Southey’s The Three Bears was an instant hit. Within months publisher George Nicol released his own version of The Story of the Three Bears (1837). Nicol’s story was in verse, but otherwise was a direct retelling of Southey’s version.

A little girl with metallic hair

In early tellings of The Three Bears, the protagonist was an old woman. But, in 1850 Joseph Cundall wrote the first retelling featuring a little girl. Cundall called his character Silver-Hair and justified the switch by saying “there are so many other stories of old women.” Published in A Treasury of Pleasure Books for Young Children (1850), Cundall’s retelling otherwise closely followed Southey’s version of The Three Bears.

The Three Bears watch Silver-Hair sleep in A Treasury of Pleasure Books for Young Children (1850).

Following Cundall’s publication, little girl protagonists named Silver-Hair became a common feature of The Three Bears retellings. The character was sometimes called Silver-Locks, Golden Hair and other variant names. 

Goldilocks popularized

The name Goldilocks was first used for the Bears' nemesis in two 1904 fairy tale anthologies. Old Nursery Rhymes and Stories (1904) and Old Fairy Tales for Children (1904) both feature "Little Goldilocks" as The Three Bears' intruder. It is possible that the name Goldilocks was inspired by an entirely different fairy tale. French fairy tale writer Madame d'Aulnoy's story The Beauty with Golden Hair is sometimes translated as The Story of Pretty Goldilocks. 

The Three Bears confront Goldilocks in English Fairy Tales (1918).

In the 20th century, Goldilocks became the character's standard name. Popular fairy tale collections like Flora Annie Steel's English Fairy Tales (1918) used the Goldilocks name. Now the story is sometimes simply titled Goldilocks without any mention of The Three Bears. 

Modern variations

The Three Bears continues to be reimagined by writers and illustrators. The Bears have been portrayed as dinosaurs, panda bears, polar bears, rhinos and everything in between.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears: A Tale Moderne (2000) by Steven Guarnaccia combines the classic fairy tale with modernist art and design. In this version, Goldilocks breaks a "pint-sized" mid-century modern chair.  

The Ghanaian Goldilocks (2014) by Tamara Pizzoli features Kofi, a little boy nicknamed Goldilocks. Instead of intruding on bears, he sneaks into the house of family friends. Pizzoli's version focuses on the story's moral message about good manners, while also exploring Ghanaian culture and traditions. 

#Goldilocks: A Hashtag Cautionary Tale (2019) by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross uses the story to teach internet safety. Their Goldilocks is an online video star. Her quest for views and likes goes too far when she sneaks into the Bears' home for video content.

Further reading

• The Story of the Three Bears: The Evolution of an International Classic edited by Warren U. Ober (only available to read in-person at the Osborne Collection and Toronto Reference Library, though unavailable at the time of writing due to lockdown restrictions)
• The Classic Fairy Tales by Iona and Peter Opie
• The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales edited by Maria Tatar

Goldilocks, Silver-Locks, and Snow White

Goldilocks and the Three Bears is one of the most famous fairytales today. It's also one of the most mysterious. Alan C. Elms wrote that Goldilocks "does not resemble any of the standard tale-types, and includes no indexed folktale motifs." For years, Goldilocks was believed to be a literary creation by a single author... until an older version surfaced in a library collection.  

1831: Eleanor Mure wrote down "The Story of the Three Bears", (available here from the Toronto Public Library) in rhyme, with watercolor illustrations, as a birthday gift for her young nephew. She called it "the celebrated nursery tale," indicating that it was already famous, and she was just rendering it in verse.
The story is different from the version familiar today. There is no Goldilocks. Rather, the story begins with three bears (all apparently male, referred to as the first, second and little bears) who move into a house in town. A snooping old woman, with no name, breaks into their house while they're out. Rather than porridge, she drinks their milk, but she breaks chairs and sleeps in beds just like the modern Goldilocks. Hearing the bears coming home, she hides in a closet. The bears return and discover the damage one by one. They find her, have difficulty burning or drowning her, and finally throw her on top of St. Paul's Church steeple.
Mure's homemade manuscript remained unknown for years, until 1951, when it was finally rediscovered in the Toronto Public Library.

Before that, the oldest known version had been Robert Southey's.
1837: Robert Southey anonymously published The Doctor, a collection of his essays. Among those was "The Story of the Three Bears." This is, in some ways, more like modern Goldilocks. The bears' meal is porridge. Again the antagonist is a nosy old lady. In a stroke of genius, Southey had the Great, Huge Bear, the Middle Bear, and the Little, Small, Wee Bear speak in appropriately sized type. The story ends with the old woman jumping out the window, never to be seen again. Southey described the story as one he had heard as a child from his uncle. Also, in letters from 1813, Southey mentioned telling the story to his relative's young children.

1849: Joseph Cundall made a significant change when he retold the tale in Treasury of Pleasure Books for Young Children. Namely, instead of an elderly crone, he made the antagonist a little girl named Silver-Hair.
The "Story of the Three Bears" is a very old Nursery Tale, but it was never so well told as by the great poet Southey, whose version I have (with permission) given you, only I have made the intruder a little girl instead of an old woman. This I did because I found that the tale is better known with Silver-Hair, and because there are so many other stories of old women.

However, Cundall might not have been the first person to do this; he implies that the tale is already "better known" as Silver-Hair. Both the name and the child character caught on very quickly, another possible indicator that he didn't make it up.

The bachelor bears got a makeover, too. In 1852, illustrations were showing them as a nuclear family. And in 1859's The Three Bears. A Moral Tale, in Verse, the bears are identified as "a father, a mother, and child."

1865: An interesting aside here. In Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens titles a chapter "The Feast of the Three Hobgoblins." The characters eat bread and milk, and Dickens includes this line:
It was, as Bella gaily said, like the supper provided for the three nursery hobgoblins at their house in the forest, without their thunderous low growlings of the alarming discovery, ‘Somebody’s been drinking my milk!’

As pointed out by Katharine Briggs, this could indicate another version of the story floating around. I think it should be noted that a synonym for hobgoblin is "bug-bear."

Back to the evolving story of The Three Bears! The heroine’s name varied from Silver Hair, to Silver-locks, to Golden Hair, to Golden Locks - or, occasionally, she was nameless. "Golden Hair" appeared around 1868, in Aunt Friendly's Nursery Book. The variant "Goldilocks" soon gained popularity. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this was a nickname for blonds as early as 1550. Old Nursery Stories and Rhymes (1904) is sometimes credited with the first use of the name Goldilocks for this story. However, Goldilocks was used for the Three Bears' antagonist as early as 1875 (Little Folks' Letters: Young Hearts and Old Heads, pg. 25, where the name is not capitalized). 

At this point, most people believed that the tale was created by Southey. In 1890, the folklorist Joseph Jacobs stated that the story was "the only example I know of where a tale that can be definitely traced to a specific author has become a folk-tale. "

However, Jacobs changed his opinion not long afterwards, when he received a story titled "Scrapefoot." This was collected by John Batten from a Mrs. H., who had heard it from her mother forty years previously. It appeared in Jacobs' More English Fairy Tales in 1894. This is close to the tale of Goldilocks that we know today, except that the main character who visits the castle of the three bears is neither a girl nor an old woman; it's a male fox named Scrapefoot. (There are quite a few parallels with Mure's version - the stolen food being milk, and the dilemma of how to kill the intruder.)

Jacobs believed that Scrapefoot must be the older, more authentic version of the tale. He publicized the theory that Southey had heard a hypothetical third version with a female fox, or vixen, and had misinterpreted the word "vixen" to mean an unpleasant woman.

However, Jacobs was building his theory based on the information he had at the time. He did not know of Mure's "Three Bears," which would not be discovered until 1951. We have two early, literary versions about an old lady, both of which state they heard the story from tradition - and one oral version, recorded later, about a male fox. 

Cundall's version, with Silver-Hair, is the oldest known to feature a child intruder. But Cundall possibly implies that other people were already telling versions with a young girl. And actually, there's more evidence for this - starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Goldilocks as a Motif
In the Grimms' story of Snow White, first published in 1812, there is a long scene where the heroine - a young child in this version, seven years old - first finds the seven dwarfs' house. Inside the empty cottage she discovers a table set with seven places, and seven beds. Snow White eats a few bites from each plate and drinks a drop of wine from each cup. Then
"She tried each of the seven little beds, one after the other, but none felt right until she came to the seventh one, and she lay down in it and fell asleep. "
When the dwarfs return, this happens:
The first one said, "Who has been sitting in my chair?"
The second one, "Who has been eating from my plate?"
The third one, "Who has been eating my bread?"
The fourth one, "Who has been eating my vegetables?"
The fifth one, "Who has been sticking with my fork?"
The sixth one, "Who has been cutting with my knife?"
The seventh one, "Who has been drinking from my mug?"
Then the first one said, "Who stepped on my bed?"
The second one, "And someone has been lying in my bed."
Eventually, they find Snow White lying there. Unlike the story of the Three Bears, however, the dwarves are so stricken with her beauty that they are happy to let her stay.
Another fun fact: in the Grimms' original draft from 1810, Snow White is golden-haired. Her mother wishes for a child with black eyes, and in a later scene there's a reference to Snow White's "yellow hairs" being combed.

The Grimms also published another story with a similar scene, "The Three Ravens. " A girl sets out to rescue her three brothers, who were transformed into ravens. She travels through the harsh wilderness to the castle where they now live. There are three plates and three cups. The girl samples from each and drops her ring into the final cup. Just then, the ravens arrive; the girl might be hiding at this point, because the ravens don't seem to notice her. They each ask, "Who ate from my little plate? Who ate from my little cup?" But when the third raven looks into his cup, he finds the sister's ring, and the curse is broken.
The Grimms edited the story significantly and changed it to "The Seven Ravens." However, I find it significant that the earlier published version had three talking animals. 

The stolen-meal scene also takes place briefly in "The Bewitched Brothers," a similar tale from Romania with two eagle-brothers. In other tales, the girl does not eat, but cleans the house and sets the table, then hides herself before her brothers come in. In a Norwegian variant called The Twelve Wild Ducks, the details are a little different, but the sister hides under the bed when her brothers arrive, and is discovered because she left her spoon on the table. In that version, at least one brother blames her for the curse, which explains why she might need to hide.

In Journal of American Folklore, Mary I. Shamburger and Vera R. Lachmann argued that Southey pulled inspiration from Snow White and also from Norwegian lore. They say,
"According to the Norwegian tale, the king's daughter comes to a cave inhabited by three bears (really Russian princes who cast off their bearskins at night). The king's daughter finds the interior of the cave very comfortable. Food and drink, especially porridge, are waiting on the table; she sees beds nearby, and after a good meal, she chooses the bed she prefers and lies not on, but underneath it!"
They're describing "Riddaren i Bjødnahame" (The Knights in Bear-shapes). I would need someone more well-versed in Norwegian dialect to weigh in, but the details seem a bit different from the previous description. The bear-knights' home is not what I'd picture as a cave; it's a Barhytte, which is apparently a hut made of pine branches.  I couldn't verify whether porridge is mentioned (if you know Norwegian landsmål, I would love to hear from you). The princess doesn't just move in and get comfy - she cooks the food and tidies up. The beds are a triple bunkbed (yes). And she doesn't take a nap - she is scared that the inhabitants may turn out to be dangerous, so she hides beneath the lowest bed. In fact, the Russian princes are charmed by her, and she ends up marrying one of them.

Shamburger and Lachmann cited one other Norwegian tale in a footnote: "Jomfru Gyltrom." This is a parallel story, which does not feature the meal scene but does have three bear-princes. Incidentally, Jomfru Gyltrom's most notable characteristic is that she has a golden dove on her head. I don't think this is really connected to Goldilocks' name, but it's still an interesting parallel.

The Three Bears today features a nuclear family with Mama, Papa and Baby Bear. However, in some of the earliest versions, all the bears are male. This is closer to the Snow White-eque tales, where the home is an all-male space. Sometimes it’s a cottage, sometimes a castle (as in Scrapefoot). The intruder is the only female. The male inhabitants may be animals, humans in animal form, or otherworldly creatures (such as dwarves, or… hmmm… Dickens’ hobgoblins?). 

The biggest difference is in the intruder's behavior. "Snow White" heroines are domestic goddesses who cook and clean wherever they go, but girls in "Three Bears" stories are forces of destruction. 

Conclusion:
I talk about tale types, but honestly, a lot of tales don’t stick to identified types. They’re more a collection of motifs. The Norwegian stories mentioned are Snow White tales, but not exactly. Both contain the essential elements of Snow White, but also other stories – “The Knights in Bear-shapes” turns into an East o’ the Sun, West o’ the Moon-type tale after the heroine wakes up, and “Jomfru Gyltrom” has an extended ending where the heroine’s stepsister impersonates her. “The Three Ravens” ends with the heroine locating her brothers, but other stories of that tale type typically continue after that point, with the heroine sewing shirts to break the curse. In a different case: one obscure English folktale, Dathera Dad, is parallel to a single scene from Tom Thumb.

The essential elements of Goldilocks are contained as a single scene in the stories of "Snow White" and "The Three Ravens," published in Germany in 1812, 19 years before Mure wrote down her version. In the 1810 version especially, Snow White was a seven-year-old blonde girl. Both Mure and Southey make reference to the story of the Three Bears being well-known. I wonder which came first. Was there a short story of a woman entering the animals' house and eating their food, which got absorbed into longer stories of a woman seeking shelter? Or did the Goldilocks scene break off from longer stories and take on a life of its own?

I believe that Goldilocks is an older story than it's been given credit for; it seems as if people are constantly finding that certain details - like the name Goldilocks - are older than previously realized. And I think the similarities to Snow White are too notable to be ignored. It's just that Southey's literary version gained notoriety and became the most influential version very quickly, while stories such as Dickens' "Three Hobgoblins" may not have been recorded.

And who knows - if Mure's version showed up more than a century after it was written, we might unearth other old versions. Mure's "Three Bears" up-ended all previous theories about Goldilocks. Joseph Jacobs thought Southey had misheard a story about a fox. Shamburger and Lachmann suggested that Southey had pulled his ideas from Norwegian folklore. But the discovery of this earlier version proved that Southey wasn't just making things up when he talked about hearing the story from his uncle; other people were already telling the story to their children.

Sometimes, if a tale doesn't contain any indexed motifs, it's time to update the index.

Sources

• Elms, Alan C. “‘The Three Bears’: Four Interpretations. ” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 90, no. 357, 1977, pp. 257–273. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/539519. Accessed 24 Mar. 2021.
• Janson, Kristofer. Folke-eventyr, uppskrivne i Sandeherad. 1878. No. 1. "Jumfru Gyltrom."
• Loo, Oliver. The 1810 Grimm Manuscripts: The First Complete English Translation of the 1810 Handwritten Manuscripts The Beginnings of the Kinder- und Hausmarchen Children's and Household Tales. 2014.
• Ober, Warren. The Story of the Three Bears: The Evolution of an International Classic.
• "Profile: Goldilocks." The Fairy Tale Cupboard (blog).
• Shamburger, Mary I., and Vera R. Lachmann. “Southey and ‘The Three Bears.’” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 59, no. 234, 1946, pp. 400–403. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/537039. Accessed 24 Mar. 2021.
• Vang, Andres Eivindson. Gamla segner fraa Valdres. Nielsen, ed. 1871. p.62. "Riddaren i Bjødnahame."
  • Reprinted in Eventyrlige sagn i den ældre historie By Moltke Moe, p644.  

Goldilocks Fairy Tale read online

Czech Tales

In one country - I forgot its name - there was a king, an evil and grumpy old man. Once a merchant came to his palace, brought fresh fish in a basket and said:
- Buy this fish from me, king. You won't regret. The king glanced at the fish:
- I have never seen such a fish in my kingdom. Poisonous, right?
- What are you! - the merchant was frightened. - Order this fish to be fried, eat it - and you will immediately begin to understand the conversation of all animals, fish and birds. Even the smallest bug will squeak something, and you will already know what he wants. You will become the smartest king on earth.
The King liked it. He bought fish from a merchant and, although he was stingy and greedy, he did not even bargain and paid what she asked for. “Now,” the king thought and rubbed his bony hands, “I will be the smartest in the world and conquer the whole world. It's like drinking! Now my enemies will cry. "
The king called his servant, young Irzhik, and ordered him to fry the fish for dinner.
- But only without cheating! - said the king to Irzhik. - If you eat at least one piece of this fish, I will cut off your head.
Irzhik brought the fish to the kitchen, looked at it and was even more surprised: he had never seen such a fish. Each fish scale glowed with multi-colored fire, like a rainbow. It was a pity to clean and fry such a fish. But you will not go against the royal order.
Irzhik fries fish and can't figure out if it's ready or not. The fish does not blush, does not become covered with a crust, but becomes transparent.
"Who knows if it's fried or not," thought Irzhik. "We must try."
Took a piece, chewed and swallowed - as if ready. Chews and hears thin, squeaky voices:
- And we have a piece! And we have a piece! W-w-fried fish! Irzhik looked around. There is not anyone. Only flies fly over the
fish dish.
— Aha! — said Irzhik. — Now I'm beginning to understand something about this fish.
He took a dish with fish and put it on the window, in a through wind, so that the fish would cool down. And outside the window, geese go through the yard and quietly cackle. Irzhik listened and heard one goose asking:
- Where are we going? Where shall we go? And the other answers:
- To the miller in the barley field! To the miller in the barley field!
- Yup! - Irzhik said again and grinned: - Now I understand what kind of fish it is. Perhaps one piece is not enough for me.
Irzhik ate the second piece of fish, then beautifully arranged the fish on a silver platter, sprinkled with parsley and dill, and carried the dish to the king.
Since then, Irzhik began to understand everything that the animals were talking about with each other. He learned that the life of animals is not as easy as people think - animals have both grief and worries. Since that time, Irzhik began to feel sorry for the animals and tried to help every smallest animal if it got into trouble.
After dinner, the king ordered two saddle horses to be brought in and went for a walk with Irzhik.
The king rode ahead, and Irzhik followed him. The hot horse Irzhik kept rushing forward. Irzhik restrained him with difficulty. The horse neighed, and Irzhik immediately understood his words.
- Yoke! - the horse neighed. - Come on, brother, let's ride and be transported in one fell swoop over this mountain.
- It would be nice, - the king's horse answered him, - but this old fool sits on me. He'll fall off and break his neck. It will turn out badly - after all, but still the king.
- Well, let him break his neck, - said Irzhik's horse. - Then you will carry the young king, and not this ruin.
Irzhik laughed softly. But the king also understood the conversation of the horses, looked back at Irzhik, poked his horse in the side with his boot and asked Irzhik:0005 - What are you laughing at, impudent?
- I remembered, your royal grace, how today in the kitchen two cooks dragged each other by whirlwinds.
- Look at me! the king said threateningly.
He, of course, did not believe Irzhik, angrily turned his horse around and galloped off to his palace. In the palace, he ordered Irzhik to pour himself a glass of wine.
- But look, if you don't fill it up or overfill it, I'll order you to cut off your head!
Irzhik took the jug of wine and began to carefully pour the wine into a heavy glass. At that moment, two sparrows flew in through the open window. They fly around the room and fight on the fly. One sparrow holds three golden hairs in its beak, and the other tries to take them away.
- Give it back! Give it back! They are mine! Thief!
- I won't give it! I picked them up when the beauty was combing her golden braids. No one else in the world has hair like this. I'm not giving it! Whom she marries will be the happiest.
- Give it back! Beat the thief!
Sparrows ruffled and, grabbing, flew out the window. But one golden hair fell out of its beak, fell on the stone floor and rang like a bell. Irzhik looked around and… spilled the wine.
- Yup! the king shouted. “Now say goodbye to life, Irzhik!”
The king was glad that Irzhik had spilled the wine and it would be possible to get rid of him. The king alone wanted to be the smartest in the world. Who knows, maybe this young and cheerful servant managed to taste fried fish. Then he will be a dangerous opponent for the king. But then the king came up with a good idea. He picked up a golden hair from the floor, handed it to Irzhik and said:0005 - So be it. Perhaps I will have mercy on you if you find the girl who lost this golden hair and bring her to me as a wife. Take this hair and go. Search!
What was Irzhik to do? He took the hair, equipped himself for the journey, and rode out of the city. And where to go, he does not know. He let go of the reins, and the horse trudged along the most deserted road. It's all overgrown with grass. It looks like it hasn't been driven in a long time. The road reached a high dark forest. Irzhik sees: a fire is burning at the edge, a dry bush is burning. The shepherds threw the fire, did not fill it, did not trample, and the bush caught fire from the fire. And under the bush is an anthill. Ants run, fuss, drag their good from the anthill - ant eggs, dry bugs, caterpillars and various tasty grains. Irzhik hears how the ants shout to him:
- Help, Irzhik! Save! We are burning!
Irzhik jumped off his horse, cut down a bush and put out the flame. The ants surrounded him in a ring, moving their antennae, bowing and thanking him:
- Thank you, Irzhik. We will never forget your kindness! And if you need help, rely on us - We will repay the good.
Irzhik drove into the dark forest. He hears: someone squeaks plaintively. He looked around and saw: under a tall spruce two crows are lying - they fell out of the nest - and they squeak:
- Help, Irzhik! Feed us! We are dying of hunger! Mother and father flew away, but we still don’t know how to fly.
The king deliberately gave Irzhik an old, sick horse - a real horse. The horse is standing, the horse's legs are shaking, and it is clear that this trip for him is one torment.
Irzhik jumped off his horse, thought, stabbed him to death and left the horse carcass for the crows - let them feed.
- Kar-r, Ir-rzhik! Ka-r-r! the crows shouted merrily. “We will help you for this!”
Irzhik went further on foot. For a long time I walked through a dense forest, then the forest began to make more and more noise, more and more loudly, the wind already bent the tops of the trees. And then the splash of waves was added to the noise of the peaks, and Irzhik went out to the sea. Two fishermen were arguing on the sandy shore. One caught a golden fish in the net, and the other demanded this fish for himself.
“My net,” one fisherman shouted, “my and the fish!”
- Whose boat is it? answered another fisherman. “Without my boat you would not have cast your net!”
The fishermen shouted louder and louder, then rolled up their sleeves, and the matter would have ended in a fight if Irzhik had not intervened.
- Stop making noise! he said to the fishermen. "Sell me this fish, and divide the money among yourselves." And deal with the end.
Irzhik gave the fishermen all the money that he received from the king for the road, took the golden fish and threw it into the sea. The fish wagged its tail, stuck its head out of the water and said:
- Quid for a favor. When you need my help, call me. I will sail.
Irzhik sat down on the shore to rest. The fishermen ask him:
— Where are you going, good man?
- I'm looking for a bride for my old king. He ordered to get him a beautiful woman with golden hair as his wife. Where can you find her?
The fishermen looked at each other, sat down on the sand next to Irzhik.
- Well, - they say - you reconciled us, but we remember well. Let's help you. There is only one beauty with golden hair in the whole world. This is our king's daughter. You see an island in the sea, and on the island - a crystal palace? That's where she lives, in this palace. Every day at dawn she combs her hair. Then such a golden dawn breaks over the sea that we wake up from it in our hut and know that it's time for us to go fishing. We will take you to the island. Only to recognize the beauty is almost impossible.
- Why is that? Irik asks.
- But because the king has twelve daughters, and the golden-haired one. And all twelve princesses are dressed the same. And they all have the same veils on their heads. Hair under them is not visible. So your business, Irzhik, is difficult.
Irzhik fishermen transported to the island. Irzhik went straight to the crystal palace to the king, bowed to him and told him why he had come to the island.
- Okay! said the king. “I am not a stubborn man. I will give my daughter in marriage to your king. But in return, you must complete my tasks for three days. Is it coming?
- Coming! Irik agreed.
- Go get some sleep off the road. Have a rest. My tasks are intricate. You can't solve them right off the bat.
Irzhik slept well! The sea wind blew through the windows all night, the surf roared, and occasionally small splashes even flew onto the bed.
Irzhik got up in the morning and came to the king. The king thought for a moment and said:
- Here's your first task. My golden-haired daughter wore a pearl necklace around her neck. The thread broke, and all the pearls scattered in the thick grass. Collect them all to one.
Irzhik went to the lawn, where the princess scattered pearls. The grass is waist-deep, and so thick that you can't see the ground beneath it.
— Eh, — Irzhik sighed, — if my ant friends were here, they would help me!
He suddenly hears a squeak in the grass, as if hundreds of some tiny people are fussing around his feet:
— We're here! We are here! How can I help you, Irzhik? Collect pearls? Wait, we're in a moment!
Ants ran in, waved their antennae and began to drag pearl after pearl to Irzhik's feet. Irzhik barely had time to string them on a harsh thread.
Collected all the necklace and carried it to the king. The king counted the pearls for a long time, lost his way, counted again.
- That's right! Okay, I'll give you a harder task tomorrow. Irzhik comes to the king the next day. The king slyly
looked at him and said:
- That's the trouble! My golden-haired daughter was bathing and dropped a golden ring into the sea. I'm giving you a day to get it.
Irzhik went to the sea, sat on the shore and almost cried. The sea in front of him lies warm, clear and so deep that it’s even scary to think.
- Eh, - says Irzhik, - if there was a golden fish here, it would help me out!
Suddenly, in the sea, something flashed on the dark water, and a golden fish emerged from the depths.
- Don't be sad! - she said to Irzhik. - I just saw a pike with a golden ring on its fin. - Be calm, I will get it.
Irzhik waited for a long time, until finally a golden fish with a golden ring on its fin emerged.
Irzhik carefully removed the ring from the fin so that the fish would not be hurt, thanked her and went to the palace.
- Well, - said the king, - you are a clever person, apparently. Come tomorrow for the last task.
And the last task was the most difficult: to bring living and dead water to the king. Where can I get it? Irzhik went aimlessly, reached the great forest, stopped and thought:
“If my crows were here, they would…”
Before he had time to think, he hears: above his head the whistle of wings, croaking and sees: familiar crows are flying towards him.
Irzhik told them his grief.
The crows flew away, they were not there for a long time, and then again rustled their wings and dragged two eggplants with living and dead water to Irzhik in their beaks.
- Carr, carr, berry and be happy! Carr!
Irzhik took the eggplants and went to the crystal palace. He went out to the edge and stopped: a black spider wove a web between two trees, caught a fly in it, killed it and sits sucking the fly's blood. Irzhik splashed dead water on the spider. The spider immediately died - folded its legs and fell to the ground. Then Irzhik sprinkled the fly with living water. She came to life, beat her wings, buzzed, broke the web and flew away. And flying away, she said to Irzhik:
- For your happiness, you revived me. I will help you recognize Goldilocks.
Irzhik came to the king with living and dead water. The king even gasped, did not believe for a long time, but he tried the dead water on an old mouse that ran through the palace room, and the living water on a dried flower in the garden and was delighted. I believed. He took Irzhik by the hand and led him into a white hall with a golden ceiling. In the middle of the hall stood a round crystal table, and behind it on crystal chairs sat twelve beauties, so similar to each other that Irzhik only waved his hand and lowered his eyes - how can you tell which one of them is Goldilocks! They all have the same long dresses, and the same white veils on their heads. Not a hair is visible from under them.
- Well, choose, - says the king. - Guess - your happiness! But no - you will leave here alone, as you came.
Irzhik raised his eyes and suddenly hears something buzzing near his ear.
- J-i-i-i, go around the table. I'll give you a hint. Irzhik looked: a small fly was flying over him. Irzhik
walked slowly around the table, while the princesses sat downcast. And everyone's cheeks flushed the same way. And the fly buzzes and buzzes:
- Not that one! Not the one! Not the one! But this one - she, golden-haired! Irzhik stopped, pretended to be still in doubt, then said:0005 - Here is the golden-haired princess!
- Your happiness! the king shouted.
The princess quickly left the table, threw off her white veil, and her golden hair spilled over her shoulders. And immediately the whole hall sparkled with such brilliance from this hair that it seemed that the sun gave all its light to the hair of the princess.
The queen looked straight at Irzhik and averted her eyes: she had never seen such a handsome and stately young man. The princess's heart was beating heavily, but her father's word is law. She will have to marry the old, evil king!
Irzhik took the bride to his master. He protected her all the way, making sure that her horse did not stumble, that a cold drop of rain did not fall on her shoulders. It was a sad return. Because Irzhik also fell in love with the golden-haired princess, but he could not tell her about it.
The grumpy old king giggled with joy when he saw the beauty, and ordered to quickly prepare the wedding. And Irzhik said:
- I wanted to hang you on a dry bough for disobedience, so that crows would peck at your corpse. But for the fact that you found me a bride, I declare you a royal favor. I will not hang you, but I will order you to cut off your head and bury with honor.
In the morning they cut off Irzhik's head on the chopping block. The golden-haired beauty sobbed and asked the king to give her the headless body and head of Irzhik. The king frowned, but did not dare to refuse the bride.
Goldilocks put her head to her body, sprinkled living water - her head grew, not even a trace was left. She sprinkled Irzhik a second time - and he jumped up alive, young and even more handsome than he was before the execution. And he asked Goldilocks:
- Why did I fall asleep so soundly?
- You would have fallen asleep forever, - Goldilocks answered him, - if I had not saved you, dear.
The king saw Irzhik and was dumbfounded: how did he come to life, and even become so beautiful! The king was a cunning old man and immediately decided to take advantage of this case. He called the executioner and ordered:
- Cut off my head! And then let Goldilocks sprinkle wonderful water on me. And I will come alive young and beautiful.
The executioner willingly cut off the head of the old king. But it was not possible to resurrect him. In vain they just poured all the living water on him. There must have been so much anger in the king that no living water could help. They buried the king without tears, to the beat of drums. And since the country needed a smart and kind ruler, he chose the people as the ruler of Irzhik - it was not for nothing that he was the wisest man in the world. And Goldilocks became the wife of Irzhik, and they lived a long and happy life.
And so ended this tale of how the animals repaid kindness for kindness and how the king lost his head.

Category: Fairy tales of the peoples of Europe

Goldilocks - Czech fairy tale

Details

Category: Czech fairy tale

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