This theory was first popularized in a tongue-in-cheek paper published in 2000 (more than 70 years after the appearance of the first Winnie-the-Pooh book ... up and down the stairs by Christopher ...

“If you write a very good book, and someone ... the holiday gift of Winnie-the-Pooh, the newly renamed bear who is dragged down the stairs by Christopher Robin, bumping his head all the way.

The character would return two years later in the first edition of “Winnie-the-Pooh ... bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, of coming down stairs ...