Snow White
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Wikipedia-Article "Snow White"
Snow White (or Snow-White, and in German, Schneewittchen) is the title character of a well known fairy tale known from many places in Europe, the most known version being the one collected by the Brothers Grimm. The German version features elements such as the mirror and the seven dwarfs. In non-German versions the dwarfs are generally robbers, while the talking mirror is a dialog with the sun or moon. In a version from Albania, collected by Johann Georg von Hahn and published in Griechische und albanesische Märchen. Gesammelt, übersetz und erläutert (1864), the main character lives with 40 dragons. The sleep is caused by a ring. The start of the story also has an interesting twist in that a teacher urges the heroine to kill her own mother so that the teacher can take her place. The origin of the tale is debated; it is likely no older than the Middle Ages. Many scholars think it originated somewhere in Asia.
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Story
In the traditional Brothers Grimm version of this tale, Snow White is born to a queen, who dies shortly after giving birth. The king takes a new wife who is beautiful but very proud. She possesses a magic mirror, to whom she would often ask "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?", and to which the mirror would always reply, "You are". But one day when she asks her mirror, it responds, "Queen, you're the fairest where you are, but Snow White is more beautiful by far".
The Queen is jealous, and orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the woods to be killed. She demands that the huntsman return with Snow White's lungs and liver as proof. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest, but finds himself unable to kill the girl. Instead, he lets her go, and brings the queen the lungs and liver of a wild boar. (In the Disney movie, these are replaced by a heart.)
Snow White discovers a tiny cottage in the forest, belonging to seven dwarfs, where she rests. Meanwhile, the Queen asks her mirror once again, "Who's the fairest of them all?", and is horrified when the mirror tells her that Snow White, who is alive and well and living with the dwarfs, is still the fairest of them all.
Three times the Queen disguises herself and visits the dwarfs' cottage where Snow White is staying to try to kill her. First, disguised as a peddler, the Queen offers colorful stay-laces and laces Snow White up so tight she faints and the Queen takes her for dead. Snow White is revived by the dwarves when they loosen the laces. Next the Queen dressed as a different old woman combs her hair with a poisoned comb. Snow White again collapses, and again the dwarves save her. Lastly the Queen makes a poison apple, and in the guise of a country woman offers it to Snow White. She is hesitant, so the Queen cuts the apple in half, eats the white part -- which has no poison -- and gives the poisoned red part to the Snow White. She eats the apple eagerly and immediately falls into a deep, magical sleep. When the dwarfs find her, they cannot revive her; and so they mourn and place her in a glass coffin, thinking that she has died. (The Disney version only adopts the poison apple plot, and the queen meets her demise as she is chased by the dwarfs.)
Time passes, and a prince travels through the land and sees Snow White in her coffin. The prince is enchanted by her beauty and instantly falls in love with her. He begs the dwarfs to let him have the coffin. The prince and his men carry the coffin away, but as they go they stumble, the coffin jerks and the piece of poison apple flies out of Snow White's mouth, awakening her. The prince then declares his love and soon a wedding is planned. (In the Disney version, the cure for this deep sleep was love's first kiss. The Prince takes a revived Snow White away, and the film ends.)
The vain Queen, still believing that Snow White is dead, again asks her mirror who is fairest in the land and yet again the mirror disappoints by responding that "You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But the young queen is a thousand times fairer than you."
Not knowing that this new queen is indeed her stepdaughter, she arrives at the wedding, and her heart fills with the deepest of dread when she realizes the truth.
As punishment for her wicked ways, a pair of heated iron shoes are brought forth with tongs and placed before the Queen. She is then forced to step into the red-hot shoes and dance until she falls down dead.
Other Versions
The story in Russian writer Alexander Pushkin's 1833 poem The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights is similar to that of Snow White, with knights replacing dwarves.
A 1916 silent film with the title Snow White was made by Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and produced by Adolph Zukor and Daniel Frohman. Directed by J. Searle Dawley, it was adapted to the screen by Jessie Graham White from his play Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The film starred Marguerite Clark as Snow White, Creighton Hale as Prince Florimond and Dorothy Cumming as Queen Brangomar/Mary Jane.
A 1933 Betty Boop cartoon, Snow-White, was adapted from this story, as was the famous 1937 Disney animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In the Disney version, Snow White wakes from her enchanted sleep as soon as the Prince kisses her, similar to Sleeping Beauty. That version is distinctly parodied in Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs.
Snow White is an important character in the Fables comic book. As presented there, she is an amalgam of the two characters that share this name---she is very touchy about her adventures with the dwarfs, is the first ex-wife of Prince Charming, and has a sister named Rose Red from whom she was estranged for some time. She was assistant mayor of Fabletown for many years, succeeding to the post after Ichabod Crane was fired for sexually harassing her. Due to Prince Charming replacing Old King Cole as mayor, as well as her giving birth to the (mostly) non-human-appearing children of Bigby (the Big Bad Wolf), she moved from the New York City Fabletown to the "Farm" upstate, where non-human-appearing Fables must live.
The story was very loosely adapted by Mercedes Lackey into her Elemental Masters novel The Serpent's Shadow, turning the main character into the Eurasian Doctor Maya Witherspoon, who must suffer the multiple stigmas of being a medically-qualified half-caste female (in other words, most of her problems stem from being not white) in turn-of-the-century London; the seven dwarves are transformed into animal avatars of various benign Hindu deities.
Snow White And Rose Red
There is another Brothers Grimm tale called Snow-White and Rose-Red which also includes a character called Snow White. However this Snow White is a completely separate character from the one found in this tale. For more information about the other Snow White, see the Snow-White and Rose-Red article. The original German names are different: Schneewittchen (the Princess) and Schneeweißchen (together with Rosenrot). There is actually no difference in the meaning, but the first name is more influenced by the dialects of Lower Germany while the second one is the Higher German version.
See also
- Rose Red
- Operation Snow White
- Snow-White and Rose-Red
- Snow-white (Fanuilos in Sindarin) is also an epithet of Elbereth in Tolkien's legendarium.
Further reading
- Grimm, Jacob and William, edited and translated by Stanley Appelbaum, Selected Folktales/Ausgewählte Märchen : A Dual-Language Book Dover Publications Inc. Mineola, New York. ISBN 0-486-42474-X