I'll squash you like a bear!

I read that line, or something very like it, in some novel ages ago. If memory serves, it was one of Troy Denning's 1991-1993 D&D novels set in the Dark Sun world of Athas. The Athasian bear is covered with an articulated shell like an armadillo's, making it something like an extremely large bug. (In 1995, Philip Pullman would either pinch or independently invent the "armored bear" idea.) I forget who the speaker was, but the point was that he was so enormous and powerful that he would say "squash you like a bear" instead of "like a bug." (A world in which even bears need protective shells is obviously not a world in which they are apex predators!)

Trying to find the passage in question on the Internet, I ended up at the Amazon page for a children's book called Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat and, even though this was obviously not what I had been looking for, I scrolled down a bit and glanced at some of the reviews. One of these, written in 2011 by an anonymous reviewer, said in part:

My husband and I were both avid readers in our childhoods, and are familiar with most of the well-known kiddie "classics" that libraries had in the 60s (many of which actually dated back to the 50s, 40s and even 30s!), but for some reason both of us had missed out on "Mr. Bear Squash-you-all-flat" until I randomly discovered him during an Amazon search. Since I love bear tales, I had to pick up a copy and discovered a story much like the "Three Little Pigs" only substituting a crabby bear for the Big Bad Wolf, some small woodland creatures for the piggies, and a big bouncy truck tire for the house made of brick.

I, too, was an avid reader in my childhood but had somehow missed this book until I randomly discovered it just now during an Internet search -- but the real coincidence is where she says the story is "much like the 'Three Little Pigs' only substituting a crabby bear for the Big Bad Wolf."

It's a theory of mine that "Big Bad Wolf" was originally a superstitiously indirect way of referring to a bear (which is why in fairy tales he huffs and puffs and is able to climb), and I referenced that less than 24 hours ago in "John, the Bear Witness," where I offhandedly glossed "big bad wolf" with a parenthetical "bear."