Snow White (tale)

### Relatives

Her mother (deceased), her father (the most often deceased), her stepmother the Queen.

## Story

When Snow White was seven, her father the widow king remarried, and her stepmother was a vain, fiery queen. The little girl was once escorted to the forest by a huntsman, who explained her the queen asked him to murder her. The queen has seen in her magic mirror that Snow White would be more beautiful than her one day. Her stepmother could not bear it, and ordered the princess to be killed. The Huntsman did not feel like obey her, and let Snow White escape, in order to hide in the forest.

She find a little house, occupied by seven dwarfs. They accepted to keep her at home, in exchange of Snow White doing the chores. She was asked to not open the door to stranger. However, she let an old hag sell her a comb which turned out to be poisoned. The dwarfs saved her by removing it when they got back home. Soon after, another old merchant lady sold her a corset, which make the princess suffocate. Once again the dwarfs revive her by removing the corset.

A few days after; a third old woman came to sell apples, and a suspicious Snow White first refused to open to her; but the apple she was showed looked appetizing. The old seller cut the fruit in two and ate the white half of it, to prove it was inoffensive. Snow White ate the red half, and it turned to be poisoned. The three old women were the queen, in disguise. She learned that Snow White was alive because of her magic mirror, and decided to kill her herself.

The dwarfs couldn't revive Snow White, and buried her in a glass coffin, to continue to see her beauty. She stayed in the coffin for seven years, intact, as she was actually in a death slumber.

After this period, a prince came by, saw the beautiful maiden and begged the dwarfs to let him take the coffin with him. One of his servants slipped while carrying it, and let the coffin fall down; the impact thrown the piece of apple out of Snow White 's throat. She woke up, and the prince proposed to her.

Great celebrations started in honor of Snow White's 15th birthday and wedding, while her stepmother was sentenced to death.

## Variants

-*Snow White* is sometimes cruel for today standards, explaining the story is now rather told with the same details than in the Disney  version. For instance, the Queen did not only demanded the princess's guts to be brought back to her, she also ate them (she did not know that the Huntsman actually brought her back wild animals bowels).

-In oral versions of the tale, the Queen was Snow White's actual mother; this was changed in the Grimm written version.

-Snow White age is also lifted in adaptations; the tale is the only version where she is only seven.

-In the tale, she was woke up with equivalent of Heimlich's manœuvre; later the tale was influenced with Sleeping beauty's story and Snow White wake up with a true love kiss.

## Trivia

-Snow White kingdom is unknown.

-Snow White is considered, with Sleeping Beauty, as a variant of the Hell goddess Persephone. She spent half a year with her mother Demeter (the spring and summer) and the other half with her husband Hades (the autumn and winter, as Demeter was sad without her and let the nature fell into a slumber). Since the christianisation, Persephone 's role was attributed to saints (like Lucy) or fairy tales heroines nicknamed the " May Maiden ". Their common feature was to be put in slumber, then wake up thanks to a prince- to symbolize nature is waking up.

-Snow White is one of the rare fairy tale heroines that been described precisely: "White as snow, dark haired as ebony, lips red like blood". Her real mother wished to have such a baby after she pricked her finger and her blood fell on snow. This detail appear in others Grimm's tales such as *The juniper tree.*

-Snow White, in adaptations, sometimes, tend to be very badass such as in *Snow White and the Huntsman.*

-She's the homonym of another Snow White, the sister of Red Rose, but is a different character.