Princess Stories

Snow White

By the Brothers Grimm

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*Did you know? The story of Snow White might have been based on a real story. There are two girls who are known to be at the origin of the story. The first one, Margarete von Waldek, who was said to be very beautiful. Margarete was from a small mining town, and children there used to work in the mines. This supposedly caused health problems and often stopped their physical growth (this should remind your of the dwarfs in the story). When she was 17, Margarete moved to Brussel, where she met the prince Philip II of Spain. He quickly fell in love with her. But she died soon after. Some say she was poisoned.

The other Snow White was a girl named Maria Sophia Margaretha Catherina von Erthal. Like Snow White, Maria Sophia was born a noble girl. After the death of her birth mother, Maria Sophia’s father remarried. The stepmother, Claudia Elisabeth von Reichenstein, was domineering and allegedly had a mirror which can now be found in the Spessart Museum in the Lohr Castle, where Maria Sophia was born.

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Once upon a time in the middle of winter, when the flakes of snow were falling like feathers from the sky, a queen sat at a window sewing, and the frame of the window was made of black ebony. And whilst she was sewing and looking out of the window at the snow, she pricked her finger with the needle, and three drops of blood fell upon the snow. And the red looked pretty upon the white snow, and she thought to herself, "Would that I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the window-frame."

Soon after that she had a little daughter, who was as white as snow, and as red as blood, and her hair was as black as ebony; and she was therefore called Little Snow-white. And when the child was born, the Queen died.

After a year had passed the King took to himself another wife. She was a beautiful woman, but proud and haughty, and she could not bear that any one else should surpass her in beauty. She had a wonderful looking-glass, and when she stood in front of it and looked at herself in it, and said—

"Looking-glass, Looking-glass, on the wall,
Who in this land is the fairest of all? "

the looking-glass answered—

"Thou, O Queen, art the fairest of all!"

Then she was satisfied, for she knew that the looking-glass spoke the truth.

But Snow-white was growing up, and grew more and more beautiful; and when she was seven years old she was as beautiful as the day, and more beautiful than the Queen herself. And once when the Queen asked her looking-glass—

"Looking-glass, Looking-glass, on the wall,
Who in this land is the fairest of all?"

it answered —

"Thou art fairer than all who are here, Lady Queen."
But more beautiful still is Snow-white, as I ween."

Then the Queen was shocked, and turned yellow and green with envy. From that hour, whenever she looked at Snow-white, her heart heaved in her breast, she hated the girl so much.

And envy and pride grew higher and higher in her heart like a weed, so that she had no peace day or night. She called a huntsman, and said, "Take the child away into the forest; I will no longer have her in my sight. Kill her, and bring me back her heart as a token." The huntsman obeyed, and took her away; but when he had drawn his knife, and was about to pierce Snow-white's innocent heart, she began to weep, and said, "Ah, dear huntsman, leave me my life! I will run away into the wild forest, and never come home again."