It seems that a good number of these entries find their genesis with my boyfriend raising a question. Take the other night, for instance, when we were watching The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XI," which led to "How does Goldilocks and the Three Bears really end?" Now I never cared much for this particular fairytale; I was a sensitive child, and I think the stranger-danger mania of the late eighties and early nineties really got to me. So my answer was something along the lines of, "She gets eaten! She escapes! I have no idea."
Wiki, for once, made things even more confusing. An 1837 version featured a dirty, foul-mouthed old woman in Goldilocks' place. In that story, she escaped when the bears discovered her; however, in an 1831 version, the bears try to drown the old woman, then try to burn her alive, and finally impale her on a church steeple. Later in the nineteenth century, the old woman character became a little girl, but her name was "Silver Hair"-- presumably she was portrayed by Steve Martin.
So, to summarize: she gets eaten. She escapes. I have no idea.
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4 comments:
Or, if you read Fables, she becomes an anarcho-feminist bestialic psychopath. With glasses!
Excellent point. The story is even further complicated!
it wasn't really my favourite fairytale either.
i always thought she was a bit spoiled and kind of deserved to be mauled/eaten by bears.
i've never heard of the dirty old woman version of the story. sounds like the witch from Hansel & Gretel.
maybe she did a stint over at the bear's cottage before she moved into the cottage made of sweets?
Entirely possible. And then she got eaten by a wolf waiting for her granddaughter to bring her a basket of undetermined goodies.
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