For a psychoanalyst, bears are symbols of positive anima, life, and plenty; motherliness, fertility, coziness, good-naturedness, and good food are also associated with bears. The opposite is the wolf (though not rightly so), as a negative animal symbol associated with hunger and hardship in winter, a potential killer, a Little-Red-Riding-Hood-eater, and, for righteous Christians, a symbol of the devil and false prophets. Giving a child a stuffed toy of a wolf instead of a bear is hardly imaginable. The sly, devious fox also stands in opposition to the good-natured, gullible bear. The fox represents low, instinctive intelligence, as opposed to the primeval, innocent, and pristine nature of the bear. In Nordic mythology, the bear is associated with the thunder god, Donar, who is a friend of humanity; the wolf is associated with Odin, or Wotan, god of the dead and high magician; the fox is associated with the clever god of fire and trickster, Loki. Thus, the animals and the mythological figures represent various aspects of the human soul.
The Dumb Bear
In many fables, a bear is often outsmarted by a clever fox or a cunning peasant. The bear is not familiar with the smooth ways of the world and is regarded as naïve or even foolish. The following story from Lapland tells how he gets fooled once again by the clever fox.
A hungry fox that had not caught even one single mouse all day long saw a Laplander approaching with a sled. The sled was full of freshly caught fish. The fox lay down on the road and played dead. When the fisherman saw the apparently frozen animal, he thought it would make a nice fur hat—so he stopped and loaded it onto the sled. As he drove on and paid no attention to the fox, it became quite alive again, grabbed the biggest fish, and disappeared.
Just as the fox was about to devour the fish, a bear came trotting along and asked him where he had found such a nice, fat fish.
“From the well in the village,” the fox lied unabashedly. “I hung my tail in it and the fish bit. But it is not so easy. You probably wouldn’t be able to take the pain.”
The bear, who very much liked to eat fish himself, thought it couldn’t be all that bad. When the people had gone to sleep, he trotted into the village, lowered his tail into the well, and waited patiently until a big fish would bite. It seemed that the fox was right as the waiting was quite uncomfortable. His poor tail got ever colder. His deceitful advisor who had been observing him the whole time started up a raspy bark so that the villagers would wake up.
“Grab your bows and spears! A bear is sitting near your well and is pissing in your water!” he yelled. The villagers came running, and the poor bear had no choice but to jump away and flee, ripping his frozen tail right off. Since then, bears only have a short stub instead of the proud tail they once had.
The bear caught the fox later on and wanted to rip him into a thousand pieces, but the red-haired scoundrel outsmarted him once again.
The sly fox and the naïve bear (drawing by Theodor Kittelsen)
Again and again, the bear gets the short end of the stick whenever he has to deal with the clever fox. A Norwegian story tells about a happy bear who had caught a fat pig (Asbjoernson and Moe 1960, 120).
“This will be a delicious feast,” the bear thought on his way to his den with a pig under his arm. A fox, whose stomach was growling for hunger, saw the bear with his prey.
“Grandfather bear,” he asked, “what do you have there?”
“Pig meat,” said the bear.
“I have something, too, that tastes especially good,” said the fox.
“What’s that?” the bear asked.
“Honey—from the biggest hive I have ever seen,” answered the fox.
“Really?” the bear asked, who started to slobber at the mere thought of the sweet stuff. Honey was heaven on earth for him. “Do you want to trade?” he asked.
“No, no way,” the fox answered, “but maybe we can make a bet. Whoever can name three different kinds of trees the fastest gets a bite of meat or a lick of honey.”
The bear thought the idea sounded not bad. He would lick up the whole beehive with one try. His mouth was already watering. On the word “go,” they each named three kinds of trees as fast as they could:
“Fir, red pine, Christmas tree,” the bear grunted in one breath.
“Ash, aspen, oak,” the fox barked.
The fox was faster; besides fir, red pine, and Christmas tree are all the same kind of tree. So the fox got to take a bite of the pig. He bit out the best part, the heart. The bear was outraged and grabbed the fox by the tail.
“Please let me go!” the fox pleaded. “If you let me go, I will show you where the beehive is and you can have all of the honey!”
They went to the tree where the beehive was. But the hive was not a beehive; it was a hive of hornets. When the bear put its lips on the hive to get at the honey, an angry swarm of hornets stung him viciously on the nose and face. The bear could only barely save himself from them. He ran away as fast as he could, completely forgetting his pig and the clever fox.
Fox and bear make a bet (drawing by Theodor Kittelsen).
Even the simple peasant is able to outsmart the naïve bear as we can see in the following story from Finland.
A bear who was so hungry his stomach was growling watched from the edge of the forest as a peasant harvested beets.
“That must be something very special if the peasant is spending so much time and effort about it,” the bear thought and went over to the peasant. “Give me your harvest or I will eat you!” the bear growled. The peasant, who was not easily scared, was somewhat startled but composed himself quickly.
“Go ahead, brother bear, take the harvest. But leave some for me so that I will not die of hunger. Who would plant the field next year in that case? Come, let’s share the harvest fairly. You can take that which grows above the ground and I will content myself with the roots.”
The bear liked this suggestion. The peasant loaded the beets into his wagon in next to no time and left the shaggy bear alone with the leaves. The bear’s mouth watered, but after the first bite he realized that the peasant had outsmarted him.
The next year the peasant was harvesting grain from the same field. Suddenly, the cheated bear was standing in front of him with fletched teeth and growled threateningly, “Give me the harvest, peasant! This time you will not cheat me!”
“All right, have it your way, brother bear. Serve yourself and eat it all. But what good will it do you if I starve over the winter? Will you be able to crop the field in the spring? I give you the friendly advice that we should share. But this time, take what you will so that I must not be accused of cheating again.”
The bear was happy, “Good,” he grumbled, “this time you take what is above the ground and I take what is below!”
The peasant secretly laughed up his sleeve, harvested, and brought the grain into his barn. The poor bear got a bloody tongue and nose from trying to eat the stubble. He found absolutely nothing to eat.
“The next time I will pay him back,” he swore to himself.
The next year the peasant was felling wood in the forest. He had brought an old billy goat and tethered it to eat in the bushes. Then the bear appeared.
“Peasant, your final hour has struck!” the bear growled. At that moment, the billy goat stuck his head out of the bushes and bleated loudly. The bear was shocked.
“What kind of a strange creature is this?” he asked. He had never seen a goat before.
“Oh, that is just my friend, the terrible bear hunter,” the sly peasant answered. “He just asked what kind of a strange, hairy tree is standing there and why I don’t fell it and tie it up in the wagon.”
“Be quick, peasant, and do what he says so that he doesn’t notice that I am a bear!” the bear begged of him, wide-eyed with fear.
“As you wish,” said the peasant and knocked the bear down with the axe then pulled him onto the wagon and tied him up. In the village, the other peasants beat the bear up so badly that he never again dared bother any of them.
The President
and the First Teddy Bear
Where does the general positive image of the bear come from? How was he able to secure his place in the hearts of so many people? Could this affection even have its roots in the Stone Age? Could it be that the mighty cave bear, by his very presence, really did protect early humans from wolves, huge cats of prey, giant hyenas, and other fiery-eyed meat eaters with killer teeth? Was that the reason he was cultishly honored? Of course, the cave bear was dangerous and treated with much respect, but he was never a man eater. The cave bear’s dull, wide molars reveal that it was a plant eater. It was definitely not interested in humans as food (Dehm 1976, 21).
Surely, the humans of the Paleolithic era saw the bear as an incarnation of the numinous power that gives all beings life and protects them but can also take that very life. Could it be that the interspecific relationship that developed is stamped deeply in the human psyche and lives on as a primeval memory? At least for the peoples of the northern hemisphere, who most likely also have at least some Neanderthal genes, this seems to be the case, especially among children, who, in some ways, go through the same developmental stages throughout childhood that snuggly, grumbly bears do. They feel protected while holding their teddy bear in the “dark cave” of their room. When a nightmare jolts them out of their sleep, a door creaks, or the wind howls, their teddy bear is their best friend. Rescue services often have teddy bears as part of their equipment to give to children traumatized by accidents or fire. Psychological studies have shown that they can calm children best. But this little bear fixation is not the only reliable source of comfort; in many countries, it is still a custom to protect children with bear teeth or bear claws hung over their beds or put in the cradle.
The teddy bear as a comfort and companion for children in the hospital (Dutch illustration in a children’s book by Rotraud S. Berner, 1985)
Folklore researchers have often observed that children’s games and rhymes are full of old cultural lore that is otherwise believed to have been lost. Hopping games, riddles, rhymes, and ring-around-the-rosy chants are as much relics of past cultural epochs as are bows and arrows, spears, hoops, or tops the remnants of former adult hunting and magic practices. Memories of older times live on while playing “Indians” or sitting around campfires, times in which humans lived as wild hunters. So it must be that the joyful acceptance of the teddy bear echoes times when humans were closer to wild animals and their souls could communicate with the souls of the animals. How else can one explain the enormous success of teddy bears?
Child and teddy bear (Swedish children’s book illustration by Olaf Landstroem)
However, the teddy bear in its present form is not very old at all. It is, like jet airplanes and computers, a product and also a symbol of the twentieth century. But it is a symbol of hope, a counterweight to all the technological monstrosities that this unnatural century has produced. The teddy bear came into existence in the year 1902. In November of that year, President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt drove to Mississippi to settle a border dispute. During a break in the drawn-out negotiations, the president, an enthusiastic big game hunter, grabbed his rifle and went hunting. After a long wait, no game showed and a worried lackey went ahead with a plan. He put a pitiful, small bear on the road knowing that the president would be coming that way. When Teddy Roosevelt saw the pitiful creature, he said, “This is where I draw the line! If I would shoot this small creature, I wouldn’t be able to look my sons in the eyes.”
The Washington Post then published a tongue-in-cheek political cartoon that referred to the original reason for his trip—however, the political aspect was soon forgotten, and the little bear from the cartoon became a public darling. The toy business saw its chance, and soon a stuffed bear was marketed as a good-luck mascot. The teddy bear was, thus, named after this president whose image is chiseled into the rock at Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills, not far from Bear Butte.
Caricature of Teddy Roosevelt (Washington Post, November 10, 1902)
That same year in Germany, Margarete Steiff, who had been in a wheelchair since she was two years old, got the idea to sew a small bear and stuff it with wood shavings. Her nephew, Richard Steiff, who wanted to become a painter and spent a lot of time drawing bears in zoos, made the pattern for her. She continued making the stuffed animals for many years with much devotion and enthusiasm.
Mother of the stuffed teddy bear, Margarete Steiff
Mrs. Steiff’s bear became an international hit, and the Steiff family soon had to build a factory to meet the demand. Between the years of 1903 and 1908, the so-called “bear years,” the time was ripe for the teddy bear, and the number produced during that time period went from 12,000 to about 975,000—a phenomenal number that was not reached again (Cockrill 1992, 12). Even President Roosevelt got teddy bear fever; he ordered one of the Steiff bears dressed in hunter’s garb for the table decoration at his daughter’s wedding. Today, Steiff teddy bears have become a collector’s item: In September 1989, an original Steiff teddy bear from the year 1926 was sold to an American collector at Sotheby’s for 168,000 German marks (roughly 80,000 dollars). In 2007, one was sold at Christie’s in London for well over 50,000 dollars.
The original Steiff teddy bear with its pattern
The Wise Bear of Little Understanding
The teddy bear was soon found in the world of children’s books. One of the most famous stuffed bears belonged to a boy named Christopher Robin and must have been the inspiration for his father, A. A. Milne, as the main character in the stories of Winnie-the-Pooh. The first story of Pooh, a sweet tooth whose head occasionally gets stuck in a honey jar, was written in 1926. Since that time, Winnie-the-Pooh has become a million-times-over best seller. A regular cult developed around the story, and adults were taken with it, too. The American sinologist, Benjamin Hoff, even took up his pen to show that the snuggle bear is actually a master of the Tao. The Tao (the path) is the foundation of the oldest Chinese teaching of wisdom. According to Hoff, Pooh incorporates the key thought of wu wei. He stands for the ability to live effortlessly in harmony with everything, completely and naturally like water that flows over all hindrances and is clear and selfless like a perfect mirror. He answers like an echo—without trimmings, straight up, uncomplicated, and without calculation. In this spirit, what is necessary is done effortlessly and spontaneously. And because this “doing without doing” is in harmony with nature, no mistakes are made; there is no misbehavior. Taking one’s time, enjoying things, being natural: that is the nature of a bear and is the Pooh way—the Tao of Pooh.
Pooh’s philosophy is certainly worthy of a Chinese Tao master, such as the following dialog with his friend Piglet1:
Later on, when they had all said “Good-bye” and “Thank-you” to Christopher Robin, Pooh and Piglet walked home thoughtfully together in the golden evening, and for a long time they were silent.
“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”
“What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”
“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting to-day?” said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.
Once Pooh visited his friend Rabbit and ate his full of honey and condensed milk until his belly was as round as a balloon. When he wanted to leave, he got stuck in the rabbit hole and had to wait until he had lost some weight. Though he was sorry that he could not eat for a time, he took it in stride. A fat bear, he admitted, is always a happy bear.
Pooh is just simple, spontaneous, and uncomplicated. His name fits—he can definitely be compared to the Tao concept of p’u, meaning “an unhewn clump” or something cloddish, natural, honest, something close to the Tao, to the origin. Pooh is the “bear of little understanding,” the bear without intellect. His head is empty, his mind is clear and uncluttered, and his action is refreshingly unconventional.
Pooh is not the only animal in
the Hundred-Acre Forest of Milne’s stories. Others represent the feelings that fill our soul: the donkey’s spirit is always clouded by worries; Piglet is fearful and hesitant; the kangaroo is nervous and fidgety; Rabbit is brainy; and the owl is always lecturing and has its head full of book learning yet still does not know anything. They all pretend to be special—only Pooh is just simply as he is. He lives in the here and now. He ambles happily along the forest path—symbolic for life’s path—without having to think about a reason or goal, without complaining about the time wasted while ambling or calculating the rewards for his efforts.
Not the scholarliness of the owl, not Piglet’s caution, not Rabbit’s cleverness, but Pooh’s simple, spontaneous ideas are the right answers to the problems that present themselves in the Hundred-Acre Forest. Seen in this light, even this bear is also the king of the forest. And like all bears, he is full of zest for life. Pooh can only shake his head at his busy friends who are constantly hustling in the name of progress instead of spending time humming their own melodies as bears do.
Pooh with honey pots in the rain (illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard, 1926)
Chapter 21
Encyclopedia of Famous Bears
I’m a very special Collector’s bear . . .
So handle me with extra care!
I need someone who knows to treasure
me more than money can ever measure . . .
Someone who’s learned that life is love,
Someone who watches stars above!
A person who stops to smell the flowers . . .
A person who walks in April showers.
Bear Page 23