Once upon a time...

There were three little bears. Their names were Dopey, Jack, and Rumpelstiltskin. Every morning, they put on their 1000-league boots and went over a little bridge - tromp tromp tromp to visit the dwarf grandmother's house made of straw. They carried with them baskets with apples (the non poisoned kind) and cake.

When they got there, she served them porridge in bowls made of Hungarian clay with spoons made of Polish pottery. When they finished, they washed up in a little sink and then made their way back home by following cake crumbs they had dropped along the way. But one day, they stopped on the bridge to look at their reflections in the water. One saw a dog with a bone and went after it, the second saw a tiny girl drifting away in a nutshell and went to save her, and the third saw a long blonde hair. When the biggest bear traced the hair back a long way, he found a princess in a tower, and begin singing to her. She sang down that she could not be freed, unless he brought back the heart of a prince in a little casket or some other golden container. Being a bear, this did not trouble him unduly. Immediately, he hurried back to tell his brother bears of the quest they must undertake. The middle brother agreed, but the youngest brother, who had always felt that he was the ugly duckling, said that he was not worthy to save a fair maiden and would just sit on the bridge. As the others hurried off, he sighed, and dropped an apple core into the water, which grew into a tall tall apple tree. Curious, he began to climb it, stopping only to talk with a black haired girl who was so scared that her face turned white. Once again, convinced of his ugliness, he only sighed and climbed on, but the girl felt sorry for him, and as he went two steps higher, she pulled at his boot, which came off in her hand. He ignored her, and kept climbing, so she stood up and kissed him on his ankle, the only spot where magic could reach through the furry skin. He was so surprised that he turned into a frog! But then the girl pulled out a magic mirror, and when he looked into it, he turned into a handsome prince. Then he kissed her back.

Hand in hand, they climbed down from the apple tree and hurried to tell everyone the good news. Naturally, she stopped in at her sister's tower, and when the blonde sister looked in the golden mirror and saw the reflection of her dark sister and her prince... the spell was broken. The blonde sister insisted she deserved to marry the bear prince, having waited all those years in the castle while her younger sister lived freely and climbed trees, but the dark sister clung to his arm and refused. Sighing, the blonde sister gave in, and was just about to sit back down to spinning her hair when the two other bears came in, asking for another day to solve the riddle of finding a prince so they could take his heart. The blonde princess pointed out that there was no more need for all that... at which point the oldest brother leaned over to kiss her and pricked his paw on the spindle and turned into a prince too! Everyone was absolutely delighted, except of course for the youngest bear, who was neither a prince nor a human. But he pointed out manfully that someone had to keep an eye on the grandmother and take care of the cottages, and, wishing the two happy couples all the best, he departed, taking with him only one gift, a singing harp to keep him company in his little brick house.

The End