---
title: XVIII. the Three Bears. — English Fairy Tales · full text with trees
description: XVIII. the Three Bears., «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: _Source_.--_Verbatim et literatim_ from Southey, _The Doctor, &c._, quarto edition, p. 327.
---

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# XVIII. the Three Bears.

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XVIII. the Three Bears. of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs: the whole text, 12 sentences and 250 words. Every sentence has its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself.

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- [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/68/1/) — \_Source\_.--\_Verbatim et literatim\_ from Southey, \_The Doctor, &c.\_, quarto edition, p. 327.
- [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/68/2/) — \_Parallels\_.--None, as the story was invented by Southey.
- [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/68/3/) — There is an Italian translation, \_I tre Orsi\_, Turin, 1868, and it would be curious to see if the tale ever acclimatises itself in Italy.
- [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/68/4/) — \_Remarks\_.--“The Three Bears” is the only example I know of where a tale that can be definitely traced to a specific author has become a folk-tale.
- [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/68/5/) — Not alone is this so, but the folk has developed the tale in a curious and instructive way, by substituting a pretty little girl with golden locks for the naughty old woman.
- [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/68/6/) — In Southey's version there is nothing of Little Silverhair as the heroine: she seems to have been introduced in a metrical version by G. N., much be-praised by Southey.
- [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/68/7/) — Silverhair seems to have become a favourite, and in Mrs. Valentine's version of “The Three Bears,” in “The Old, Old Fairy Tales,” the visit to the bear-house is only the preliminary to a long succession of adventures of the pretty little girl, of which there is no trace in the original (and this in “The Old, Old Fairy Tales.”
- [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/68/8/) — Oh!
- [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/68/9/) — Mrs. Valentine!).
- [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/68/10/) — I have, though somewhat reluctantly, cast back to the original form.
- [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/68/11/) — After all, as Prof.
- [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/68/12/) — Dowden remarks, Southey's memory is kept alive more by “The Three Bears” than anything else, and the text of such a nursery classic should be retained in all its purity.

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