And while they were walking, a little old Woman came to the house. She could not have been a good, honest old Woman; for first she looked in at the window, and then she peeped in at the keyhole; and seeing nobody in the house, she lifted the latch. The door was not fastened, because the Bears were good Bears, who did nobody any harm, and never suspected that any body would harm them. So the little old Woman opened the door, and went in; and well pleased she was when she saw the porridge on the table. If she had been a good little old Woman, she would have waited till the Bears came home, and then, perhaps, they would have asked her to breakfast; for they were good Bears, — a little rough or so, as the manner of Bears is, but for all that very good natured and hospitable. But she was an impudent, bad old Woman, and set about helping herself...*
From ‘The Doctor’ Volume IV (1837) by Robert Southey (1774-1843). With acknowledgements to ‘The Three Bears Before Goldilocks: The History of a Fairy Tale’ at Toronto Public Library.
* The old woman proceeds to go through the Bears’ house trying out the bowls of porridge, the chairs and the beds all in turn, finding one from each that suited her, while grumbling with a ‘bad word’ about everything that was not to her liking. Eventually the Bears came back, and Southey goes through the reassuring routine again, how they detected some interference in the porridge, then the chairs and lastly the beds. It was in the Wee Bear’s bed that they found the old Woman.