Selected Tales of the Brothers Grimm(63)
The next morning Snow White awakened, and when she saw the seven dwarfs she took fright. But they were friendly and asked, “What is your name?”
“My name is Snow White,” she replied.
“How did you come to our house?” the dwarfs inquired.
Whereupon she told them that her stepmother wanted to have her killed, but the hunter charged with the deed spared her life, and she ran all day until she finally found their little house.
The dwarfs said, “If you will keep house for us, cook, make our beds, wash, sew and darn our socks, and make sure everything is clean and tidy, you can stay with us and you will lack for nothing.”
“Yes,” said Snow White, “very gladly,” and she stayed with them.
She kept their house in order. In the morning they went off to the mountains to search for ore and gold, and in the evening when they came back, their dinner had to be ready. But all day long the girl was alone and the kindhearted dwarfs warned her: “Beware of your stepmother, she will soon find out that you’re here. Don’t let anybody in.”
But after eating what she thought was Snow White’s lungs and liver, the queen thought of nothing else but that she was once again the loveliest in the land, and went to her mirror and said,
“Little mirror, little mirror, hanging on my wall,
Tell me, won’t you, who in the land is the loveliest of all?”
To which the mirror replied,
“Your majesty, you are the loveliest here, it’s true,
But Snow White who lives with the little men
Over yonder hill and glen
Is a thousand times lovelier than you.”
Upon hearing the mirror’s pronouncement, the queen quaked and quivered with rage. “Snow White must die,” she cried, “even if it costs me my own life.”
She then retired to a hidden chamber to which no one else had access, and there she prepared the potion for a poison apple. It looked lovely and luscious, firm and white inside and bright red on the outside, so that everyone who saw it longed to take a bite, but whoever swallowed a tiny piece was doomed to die. When the apple was ready, she made up her face, dressed as a peasant woman, and set out across the seven mountains to the home of the seven dwarfs.
She knocked at the door, and Snow White looked out the window and said, “I dare not let anyone in, the seven dwarfs have forbidden it.”
“As you like,” replied the peasant woman, “but I’m tired of carrying my apples around. I’ll gladly give you one.”
“No,” said Snow White, “I cannot accept it.”
“Are you afraid of poison?” the old woman said. “Look here, I’ll cut the apple in two. You eat the red part, I’ll eat the white.” But the apple was so artfully prepared that only the red part was poisoned. Snow White longed for a bite of the beautiful apple, and when she saw the peasant woman eat of it she couldn’t resist any longer, stuck her hand out, and took the poisoned half. No sooner did she take a bite than she fell down dead. Whereupon the queen regarded her with horrid grimaces, laughed out loud, and said, “As white as snow, as red as blood, as black as ebony! This time the dwarfs can wake you.”
And when she got home and asked her mirror,
“Little mirror, little mirror, hanging on my wall,
Tell me, won’t you, who in the land is the loveliest of all?”
The mirror finally replied,
“Your majesty, you are the loveliest in the land.”
Then at last her jealous heart rested easy, as easy as a jealous heart can rest.
That evening when the dwarfs got home they found Snow White lying on the ground, no breath blew from her mouth, and she was dead. They picked her up in their arms, looked in her mouth to see if they could find anything poisonous, undid her dress, combed her hair, and washed her with water and wine, but nothing helped. The dear child was dead and stayed dead. They lay her on a funerary bier and all seven sat around her and wept and wept for three days. Then they wanted to bury her, but she looked so fresh, just like a living person, and still had such lovely red cheeks.
So they said, “We cannot bury such loveliness in the black earth.” And they fashioned a glass casket you could see through from all sides, lay her in it, and inscribed her name in golden letters, and that she was a princess. Then they set the glass casket out on the mountain, and one of them always kept watch. And the wild animals came and wept for Snow White – first an owl, then a raven, and finally a dove.
Snow White lay a long, long time in her casket and did not decay but rather looked like she was sleeping, for she was still as white as snow, with lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony. It so happened that a prince went riding through the woods and arrived at the dwarfs’ house where he hoped to spend the night. On the nearby mountaintop he saw the casket with lovely Snow White lying within and read the golden-lettered inscription. Then he said to the dwarfs, “Let me have the casket. I will give you whatever you wish for it.”