Eeyore is a character in the book series Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. He is a pessimistic, gloomy, old, depressed, grey stuffed donkey who is a friend of Winnie-the-Pooh. Eeyore's name is a phonetic representation of the donkey's bray: an onomatopoeia, possibly derived from the baby talk name for the animal.
Physically, Eeyore is described as an "old grey donkey". In Ernest H. Shepard's illustrations, he appears to be about waist-high to Pooh and about knee-high to Christopher Robin. He has a long tail, of which he is very fond, but also prone to losing. (Owl once mistakes it for a bell-rope.) Christopher Robin is able to reattach the tail with a nail. Eeyore is commonly characterized by his walking style with his head down suggesting a constant depressed state.
Eeyore is apparently able to write, or at least recognize letters such as the letter A that he teaches to Piglet in the fifth chapter of The House at Pooh Corner. He spells his own name "eoR" when signing the "rissolution" that the animals give to Christopher Robin as a farewell present in the final chapter of The House at Pooh Corner. Eeyore also wrote the awkwardly-rhymed poem called, "POEM", which appeared on the "rissolution", making him the only character in the Winnie-the-Pooh books other than Pooh himself who attempts to write poetry. Eeyore is also surprisingly good at the game Poohsticks, winning more times than anyone else when it is played in the sixth chapter of The House at Pooh Corner.
Eeyore lives in the southeast corner of the Hundred Acre Wood, in an area labeled "Eeyore's Gloomy Place" on the map in the book. He has a stick house there, called the House at Pooh corner, which Pooh and Piglet built for him after accidentally mistaking the original house that Eeyore built for a pile of sticks.
Eeyore's favorite food is thistles.
Eeyore appears in chapters IV, VI, VIII, and X of Winnie-the-Pooh, and is mentioned in a few others. He also appears in all the chapters of The House at Pooh Corner except chapter VII.
Eeyore's "birthday" is December 25 1921, the date when Christopher Robin Milne received a stuffed toy donkey as a Christmas present.
