Tale of Snow White and the seven dwarfs

## 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

-The queen is condemned to dance until death with red hot iron shoes. It was especially revolting to imagine the kind Snow White approve or even order this, so this cruel fate was often changed in adaptations, in the Disney version, she simply fell fell from a cliff. She is still condemned to this in the short series *The 10th kingdom*, but survives the experience and run away in the forest with injured feet; she lives there for years under the nickname of The swamp witch.

-Snow White do not encounter dwarfs in all versions; sometimes, like in the Russian version, *The dead princess lay,* they are seven knights instead. Noticing someone cleaned their house during their absence, they asked the responsible to show up, promising they won't harm him. "If you're an old woman, we'll treat you as our mother, an old man, as our father, a young boy, you'll be our eighth brother, a young girl, like our sister." Snow White was seen as a sister then, despite knights once asked if she did not want to marry one of them- and she declined. This version is one of the few where it is not the queen in a disguise that give the apple, but a servant of the later.

-Adaptations usually show Snow White falling only for the apple trap; the two extra poisoned objects make her look like not suspicious enough.

-Maria Sophia Margaretha Catharina of Erthal was a noble woman of Lohr, who died poisoned by her stepmother, and was probably an historical model.

-*Tristana*is a 1987 song of Mylene Farmer, which the video look like Snow White 's story transposed in Communist Russia.

## Gallery

The iron shoesAnimated series (1994)*Snow White: a tale of terror* (1997)*Snow White, the fairest of them all* (2001)*The new Snow White* (2011) A modern version were dwarfs are children.*Mirror, Mirror* (2012)*Snow White and the Huntsman* (2012)Queen Snow White in *Ever After High: dragon games*.