Snow White

Snow White
By the Brothers Grimm

The tale of Snow White features one of the most fabulous baddies of all time in the form of the Wicked Queen, vainly peering into her mirror and asking – Who is the fairest of us all? Her motivations of vanity and envy are so very human, and that is what gives the tale its power.
Disney followed the Brothers Grimm quite closely in his beautiful 1937 film. TheSeven Dwarfs were not the invention of Walt (though their names were). It is a wintry tale, with a chilly beauty, but still it manages to warm the heart until the final lines where the Wicked Queen meets her just deserts. A word of warning: grown-Ups may find her punishment rather horrid.
Read by Natasha.
Read PRC: Fairytales & Magical Mirrors
and Woods, Palaces & Fairytales
You mightalso be interested in these external links:
Snow White Wikipedia
SurLaLune Annotated Snow White
D.L. Ashliman’s Snow White Page
Disney’s Snow White Page

A very long time ago, in mid winter, when the snowflakes were falling like feathers from heaven, a beautiful queen sat sewing at her window, which had a frame of black ebony. As she worked, she looked sometimes at the falling snow, and ithappened that she pricked her finger with her needle, so that three drops of blood fell upon the snow. How pretty the red blood looked upon the dazzling white! The Queen said to herself as she looked it, “Ah me! If only I had a dear little child who had skin as white as the snow, lips as rosy as the blood, and hair as black as the ebony window frame.”
Soon afterwards she had a little daughter,with skin white as snow, lips rosy as blood, and hair as black as ebony– and she was therefore called “Little Snow White.”
But alas! When the little one was born, the good Queen died.
A year passed away, and the King took another wife. She was a beautiful woman, but proud and haughty, and she could not bear that anyone else should surpass her in beauty. She had a mirror and when she stood in frontof it and asked,
“Mirror, mirror upon the wall, Who is the fairest of us all?”
The mirror answered:
“Thou, O Queen, art the fairest of all,” and the Queen was contented, because she knew the mirror could speak nothing but the truth.
But as time passed on, Little Snow White grew more and more beautiful, until when she was seven years old, she was as lovely as the bright day, and still morelovely than the Queen herself, so that when the lady one day asked her mirror “Mirror, mirror upon the wall, Who is the fairest of us all?”
it answered:
“O Lady Queen, though fair ye be, Snow White is fairer far to see.”
The Queen was shocked, and grew yellow and green with envy, and from that moment envy and pride grew in her heart like rank weeds, so that she had no peace day or night, until oneday she called a huntsman and said “Take the child away into the woods and kill her, for I can no longer bear the sight of her. And when you return, bring with you her heart, that I may know you have obeyed my will.”
The huntsman dared not disobey, and he led Snow White out into the woods and placed an arrow in his bow to pierce her innocent heart, but the little girl cried and begged himsaying, “Ah dear huntsman, leave me my life! I will run away into the wild forest, and never come home again.”
And as she was so beautiful the huntsman had pity on her and said, “Run away, then, you poor child.” While to himself he thought, “The wild beasts will soon have devoured you,” and yet it seemed as if a stone had been rolled from his heart since he no longer had to to kill her.
Then as ayoung wild boar came rushing by, he killed it, took out its heart, and carried it home to the Queen. The cook was ordered to prepare this, and the wicked Queen ate it, and thought she had eaten the heart of Snow White.
Poor little Snow White was now all alone in the wild wood, and so frightened was she that she trembled at every leaf that rustled. Then she began to run, and ran over sharp stones...