Snowdrop

In midwinter, while broad flakes fell, a queen sat working at a window framed in fine black ebony. She pricked her finger; three drops of blood fell on the snow. Looking at the red on the white she wished for a daughter as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the ebony frame. The child came and was named Snowdrop. When the girl was born the queen died.

After a year the king married again. The new queen was beautiful but proud and envious, and her magic looking-glass answered when she stood before it: she was the fairest in the land—until Snowdrop grew to be seven and a thousand times fairer. One day the glass said Snowdrop was fairer than she. Rage filled her. She called a huntsman and ordered him to take the child into the wood, kill her, and bring back her heart as proof. The huntsman obeyed as far as the forest, but when Snowdrop wept and begged, he took pity, told her to run and never return, and killed a young wild boar instead, giving the queen its heart. She had it salted and cooked and ate it, believing it Snowdrop’s.

The child ran through the wood in terror as long as her feet would carry her. Beasts passed without harming her. At evening, when her strength was gone, she came upon a little cottage and went in to rest. Inside stood a table laid with a white cloth, seven little loaves, seven little cups of wine, and along the wall seven little beds covered with clean quilts. Hungry and thirsty, she would not take all from one place: she ate a morsel from each loaf and drank a drop from each cup, then tried the beds one after another—some too long, some too short—until the seventh fitted, and there she fell asleep.

When it was quite dark the seven dwarfs who owned the house came home from digging ore and gold in the mountains. They lit their seven candles and saw at once that someone had been there—chairs moved, loaves nibbled, cups tasted. The first cried that someone had sat in his chair; another that someone had eaten from his plate; a third that someone had drunk from his cup. At last they found Snowdrop asleep in the seventh bed. They held up their candles in wonder at her beauty and took care not to wake her. Morning came; she woke afraid at the sight of them, but they spoke kindly, heard how the queen had sought her life, and said she might stay if she would keep house—cook, make beds, wash, sew, and knit—and she should want for nothing. Only she must not open the door to any stranger while they were away among the mountains.

The queen, thinking Snowdrop dead, asked the glass again; it said she was fairest of those here, but over the hills in the wood with the seven dwarfs Snowdrop was a thousand times fairer. Knowing the huntsman had lied, she stained her face and dressed as an old pedlar woman. At the cottage she knocked and offered pretty stay-laces. Snowdrop, seeing no harm in the old woman, let her in and let her lace the bodice—then the queen pulled the lace so tight that Snowdrop fell as if dead. The dwarfs came home, cut the lace, and she breathed again. They warned her more strongly never to open the door.

The queen asked the glass; still Snowdrop lived. She made a poisoned comb, disguised herself differently, and offered to comb Snowdrop’s hair. The girl allowed it; the poison felled her. The dwarfs found her, removed the comb, and she revived. They begged her again to open to no one.

A third time the glass told the same bitter news. Pale with fury, the queen shut herself in a secret room where no one ever came and made a poisoned apple, rosy and beautiful to look at—one cheek white, one red—yet only the red half carried death. She stained her face, dressed as a peasant woman, and climbed again to the cottage. “Good apples to sell,” she called. Snowdrop said she dared open to no one. “You may look for yourself,” said the woman; “I will cut it; you take the red cheek and I will eat the white.” She cut the apple in two, bit into the white half, and held out the red. The girl, seeing her eat, took one bite—and fell as if dead upon the floor.

When the dwarfs came home they found her lying still. They loosened her dress, combed her hair, washed her with water and wine, but nothing helped. She stayed as if asleep and would not wake. They laid her on a bier and mourned three days. Weeping, they said they could not put so fair a child into the dark earth. So they made a coffin of clear glass, laid her in it, wrote her name on it in golden letters as a king’s daughter, and set it on the mountain. One of them always stayed beside it to watch.

A prince riding hunting in the wood saw the coffin on the mountain and the lovely child within as if asleep, read the golden words, and asked the dwarfs to sell it to him for whatever price they named. They would not sell their dear Snowdrop for all the gold in the world. He begged them to give him the coffin from pity, saying he could not live without looking upon her, and would honour and keep her as the dearest thing he had. At last they took pity and let him have it. His servants lifted the coffin to carry it away; as they went they stumbled over a root or bush, and the jolt shook the piece of poisoned apple out of her throat. Snowdrop opened her eyes, sat up alive, and asked where she was. The prince, full of joy, declared his love and asked her to go with him to his father’s kingdom and marry him. She consented. The wedding was held with great splendour. The wicked queen was invited; before she went she asked the glass, which named the young queen fairer. Choking with rage when she saw Snowdrop alive, she fell down and died. Snowdrop and the prince lived and reigned happily for many years, and sometimes they climbed the mountains to visit the dwarfs who had been so kind in her need.

Where this story comes from

“Snowdrop” is the name Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes gave in English to the Grimms’ Sneewittchen, the tale most readers now call “Snow White”. This tale comes from the Grimm collection (Germany). Margaret Hunt’s 1884 translation lists it as number 53.

According to the Grimms’ notes it was pieced together from several tellings in Hesse, where it was among the best-known stories of all. In one version they recorded, a count driving past three heaps of snow, three pits of red blood and three black ravens wishes for a girl as white, as red and as black as these.

This retelling combines details from two English versions: the servants stumbling with the coffin follows Hunt, while the queen dying from rage and the later visits to the dwarfs follow Taylor/Edwardes. Compare Hunt’s Household Tales.

Read the original: Grimms’ Fairy Tales, tr. Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes (Project Gutenberg #2591, Snowdrop)

Reading guidance: older readers. Includes a guardian ordering a child’s murder, intended cannibalism, repeated poisoning, apparent death and a prince seeking possession of her coffin. The source gives Snowdrop’s age as seven when the rivalry begins and does not clearly date the later events.

Reading the story closely

The mirror never tells the queen to hurt anyone: she turns a comparison of appearances into a demand that another person disappear. The helpers also emphasize Snowdrop’s beauty, especially when deciding to display her body. That makes ‘inner beauty wins’ an incomplete reading of this version, whose characters repeatedly judge by looks.

Compare the laces, comb and apple as three changing deceptions. With the apple, the queen pretends to share the same risk while secretly keeping a safe half. Then distinguish the prince’s wish from the accidental jolt that revives Snowdrop. The rescue happens through several helpers and chance, not because the child has finally learned a lesson.

Talk about it

• Why does the queen keep asking the glass the same question?
• How does the queen change her disguise and sales pitch after each failed attack? Who is responsible for those deceptions?
• How does a stumble on a root end up saving Snowdrop? What does that tell you about luck in fairy tales?

Related stories

• Snow-White and Rose-Red — two sisters, a bear and a dwarf in a different Grimm story
• The Juniper-Tree — another Grimm tale that opens with a wish for a child white as snow