A bear and it's owner was travelling through the Forest of Dean, stopping off to dance in the towns and villages. Whilst travelling between Ruardean and Cinderford, a girl had gone missing from one of the villages, and it was thought that the bear had attacked and eaten the girl. Enraged, a mob of local men tracked down the man and his bear, attacked him and killed the bear. At that moment, the missing girl emerged from the forest, unharmed and definitely not eaten by a bear. Ever since, Ruardean and Cinderford have pointed the blame at each other, and you should definitely not ask them 'who killed the bear?'
One of the reasons that I had chosen the 'who killed the bears' story was because I had heard different versions of the tale, each slightly varying from the other. One formal recount of the story comes from a short documentary hosted by Lionel Hamden in 1964 called 'Who Killed the Bears?' [1], which focuses on the rivalry between the two forest villages involved, Ruardean and Cinderford: and this can be watched here. This version, which is probably the most reliable, differs from the one I have heard as there are two bears and four french men in the story [2], as opposed to the single bear and man that I had been told. The bears had also been accused of not only killing a girl but also attacking a woman. [3]
Another version of the story that has been turned into a play is Dennis Potter's 'A Beast with Two Backs', where a man kills his lover and pins the murder on a dancing bear that had recently visited the town. [4]
It's also been interesting to see what versions of the story other people know, some people say it involved a circus, some people say it was one bear and not two- and I like that even though it was an actual event that happened with witnesses and a pretty detailed account of the events, we still make up our own stories, and manipulate them slightly, forgetting some parts and adding others.
I came up with an idea for my own story, a fictional story based on the true events that I could base my costume on and make it more interesting to me and create a clearer narrative for an audience to follow. I decided to focus the story on the little girl that goes missing, and the effects of having the bear killed because she disappeared.
I came up with the story of her watching the bear dance and seeing how unhappy the bear was dancing for everyone. The girl decides to run away at night to find the bear and try to set it free, only to get lost in the dark forest. Upon discovering the girl is missing, the villagers blame the bear that had recently visited them, and so a mob of angry miners from the village tracked the bear and it's owner down. The bear is beaten to death, just as the girl appears from the forest. Burdened by guilt, the girl grows up with the weight of what she did, never able to escape the thought of the dancing bear that she tried to save, but in doing so sentenced to death.
I still want the illustrations for the whole thing to be abstract and not a linear narrative, but just little clues that you pick up on in order to tell your own version of the story, much like the different versions of the tale that I have heard. The illustrations are just a suggestion of a story, not a solid narrative like a comic book or graphic novel
REFERENCES:
[1] BFI, 2017
[2] BFI. 2017
[3] BFI, 2017
[4] BBC, 2017
BFI. 2017. Who killed the bears 1964. [Online]. [Date accessed 21 March 2017] Available from: http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-who-killed-the-bears-1964/
[4]BBC. 2017. The Wednesday play- A Beast with Two Backs. [Date accessed 21 March 2017]. Available from: https://store.bbc.com/the-wednesday-play/a-beast-with-two-backs
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