13 Snow-White (1) (Germany)
One wintry afternoon—and snow was falling—a Queen sat at her window. Its frame was of the dark wood called ebony. And as she sewed with her needle she pricked her finger, and a drop of blood welled up on the fair skin.She raised her eyes, looked out of the window, and sighed within herself: “Oh that I had a daughter, as white as snow,her cheeks red as blood, and her hair black as ebony!”Byand-by her wish came true, and she called the child Snow-White.
Some years afterwards this Queen died, and the King took another wife. She, too, was of a rare dark beauty, but vain and cold and proud. Night and morning she would look into her magic looking-glass and would cry softly:
“Looking-glass, looking-glass on the wall,
Who is the fairest of women all?”
And a voice would answer her out of the looking-glass:“Thou, O Queen.”
But as the years went by, Snow-White grew ever more lovely, and the Queen more jealous. And one day, when the Queen looked yet again into her looking-glass and asked it as usual. The looking-glass answered:
“Fair, in sooth[1], art thou[2], O Queen;
But fairer than Snow-White is nowhere seen.”
At this, the Queen was beside herself with rage and hatred; and in secret she sent for a huntsman, and bade him take Snow-White into the forest and do away with her. But he had not the heart to do the Queen’s bidding, so he speared a wild boar, and dabbling Snow-White’s kerchief in its blood,returned to the Queen.
Snow-White, left alone in the forest, hastened on in terror.She came at last to a little house and went in. In the middle of the room stood a table with seven little stools around it;while on the table itself lay seven platters and seven bowls,with seven spoons beside them, and seven tiny loaves of bread, and seven little glasses for wine. For it was the Seven Dwarfs’ house. Snow-White was hungry, so she broke off a mouthful from each tiny loaf in turn, and sipped a sip of wine from one of the glasses. Then she went upstairs, and came into a room with seven little beds. She sat down on one of the beds to rest herself; but from sitting slipped into lying,and then fell fast asleep.
Towards evening, the Seven Dwarfs came home and found their door ajar. They went in, and climbed up the stairs,and found Snow-White on one of the beds. The dwarfs clustered together round the bed on which Snow-White was lying and looked at her. In all their wanderings they had never seen a lovelier face. When Snow-White woke up she told them her story. The dwarfs said, “Hide with us here, and you are safe.”So Snow-White became the housekeeper of the dwarfs while they went out all day long to seek for gold and silver in the mountains. She was happy with the Seven Dwarfs.
Now one day the Queen looked into her magic glass and whispered:
“Looking-glass, looking-glass on the wall,
Who is the fairest of women all?”
And the voice from within replied:
“Fair in sooth, art thou, O Queen;
But fairer than Snow-White is nowhere seen.
Happy she lives, beyond words to tell,
Where the dwarfs of the mountains of copper dwell.”
At this, the face looking back out of the glass at the Queen became so black and crooked with rage that she hardly knew herself. She stole down to a little secret closet and made a poisonous apple, rosy red on the one side, green on the other.The very sight of it made her mouth water, and she smiled to herself as she looked at it and thought: “This is the end.”
—Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm
[1] in sooth：﹝古﹞= in truth。
[2] art thou：﹝古﹞= are you。