"Snow White" is a German fairy tale known from many countries in Europe, the best known version being the German one collected by the Brothers Grimm in 1812 (German: Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"). The German version features elements such as the magic mirror, the poisoned apple, the glass coffin, and the seven dwarfs, who were first given individual names in the 1912 Broadway play Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and then given different names in Disney's 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The Grimm story, which is commonly referred to as "Snow White", should not be confused with the story of "Snow White and Rose Red", another fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm (in German "Schneeweißchen", rather than "Schneewittchen").
In the Aarne-Thompson folklore classification, tales of this kind are grouped together as type 709, Snow White. Others of this kind include "Bella Venezia", "Myrsina", "Nourie Hadig" and "Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree".[1]
Snow White (illustrations of Franz Jüttner, 1905-1910)
The seven dwarfs find Snow White sleeping
The queen asks the magic mirror
The dwarfs warn Snow White
The queen and the poisoned apple
The prince and Snow White's awakening
The queen arrives to the wedding
The English translation of the definitive edition of the Grimms' Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Berlin 1857), tale number 53, is the basis for the English translation by D. L. Ashliman.[2]
Once upon a time as a Queen sits sewing at her window, she pricks her finger on her needle and three drops of blood fall on the snow that had fallen on her ebony window frame. As she looks at the blood on the snow, she says to herself, "Oh, how I wish that I had a daughter that had skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony". Soon after that, the queen gives birth to a baby girl who has skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony. They name her Princess Snow White. As soon as the child is born, the queen dies.
Soon after, the king takes a new wife, who is beautiful but also very vain. The new queen possesses a magical mirror, an animate object that answers any question, to whom she often asks: "Magic mirror on the wall / Who is the fairest of them all?" (in German "Spieglein, Spieglein, an der Wand / Wer ist die Schönste im ganzen Land?"; in Italian "Specchio, servo delle mie brame, chi è la più bella di tutto il reame?" ) to which the mirror always replies "You, my queen, are fairest of all." But when Snow White reaches the age of seven, she becomes as beautiful as the day, and when the queen asks her mirror, it responds: "Queen, you are full fair, 'tis true, but Snow White is fairer than you." Though in another version, the mirror simply replies: "Snow White is the fairest of them all."
The queen becomes jealous, and orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the woods to be killed. She demands that the huntsman, as proof of killing Snow White, return with her lungs and her liver. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest, but after raising his knife to stab her, he finds himself unable to kill her as he has fallen deeply in love with her. Instead, he lets her go, telling her to flee and hide from the Queen. He then brings the queen the lungs and liver of a boar, which is prepared by the cook and eaten by the queen.
In the forest, Snow White discovers a tiny cottage belonging to a group of seven dwarfs, where she rests. There, the dwarfs take pity on her, saying "If you will keep house for us, and cook, make beds, wash, sew, and knit, and keep everything clean and orderly, then you can stay with us, and you shall have everything that you want." They warn her to take care and let no one in when they are away delving in the mountains. Meanwhile, the Queen asks her mirror once again "Who's the fairest of them all?", and is horrified to learn that Snow White is not only alive and well and living with the dwarfs, but is still the fairest of them all.
Three times the Queen disguises herself and visits the dwarfs' cottage while they are away during the day, trying to kill Snow White. First, disguised as a peddler, the Queen offers colorful stay-laces and laces Snow White up so tight that she faints, causing the Queen to leave her dead on the floor. However, Snow White is revived by the dwarfs when they loosen the laces. Next, the Queen dresses as a different old woman and brushes Snow White's hair with a poisoned comb. Snow White again collapses, but again is saved by the dwarfs. Finally, the Queen makes a poisoned apple, and in the disguise of a farmer's wife, offers it to Snow White. When she is hesitant to accept it, the Queen cuts the apple in half, eats the white part and gives the poisoned red part to Snow White. She eats the apple eagerly and immediately falls into a deep stupor. When the dwarfs find her, they cannot revive her, and they place her in a glass coffin, assuming that she is dead.
Time passes, and a prince traveling through the land sees Snow White. He strides to her coffin. The prince is enchanted by her beauty and instantly falls in love with her. He begs the dwarfs to let him have the coffin. The prince's servants carry the coffin away. While doing so, they stumble on some roots and the movement causes the piece of poisoned apple to dislodge from Snow White's throat, awakening her (in later adaptions of the tale, the prince kisses Snow White, which brings her back to life). The prince then declares his love for her and soon a wedding is planned.
The vain Queen, still believing that Snow White is dead, once again asks her mirror who is the fairest in the land, and yet again the mirror disappoints her by responding that "You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But the young queen is a thousand times fairer than you."
Not knowing that this new queen was indeed her stepdaughter, she arrives at the wedding, and her heart fills with the deepest of dread when she realizes the truth. As punishment for her wicked ways, a pair of heated iron shoes are brought forth with tongs and placed before the Queen. She is then forced to step into the iron shoes and dance until she drops dead.[3]
In their first edition, the Brothers Grimm published the version they had first collected, in which the villain of the piece is Snow White's jealous mother. In a version sent to another folklorist prior to the first edition, additionally, she does not order a servant to take her to the woods, but takes her there herself to gather flowers and abandons her; in the first edition, this task was transferred to a servant.[4] It is believed that the change to a stepmother in later editions was to tone down the story for children.[5]
Snow White's triple seeming-death and resurrection, beyond an amusement or wish-fulfilling temporary escape, fulfills the initiatory process of life[further explanation needed], as Mircea Eliade described it: "What is called 'initiation' coexists with the human condition, reaffirms the ultimate religious significance of life and the real possibility of a 'happy ending.'"[6]
In the many non-German versions, the dwarfs are generally robbers, while the magic mirror is a dialog with the sun or moon.[citation needed]
In a version from Albania, collected by Johann Georg von Hahn,[7] the main character lives with 40 dragons. Her sleep is caused by a ring. The beginning of the story has a twist, in that a teacher urges the heroine to kill her evil stepmother so that she would take her place. The origin of this tale is debated; it is likely no older than the Middle Ages. In fact there are possibly two Albanian versions of Snow White: one where her stepmother tries to kill her, and another where her two jealous sisters try to kill her. "The Jealous Sisters" is another Albanian fairy tale. In both fairy tales the death is caused by a ring.
- Paralleling the stepmother's question of her magic mirror, the 1540 epic poem Padmavat includes the line: "Who is more beautiful, I or Padmavati?, Queen Nagamati asks to her new parrot, and it gives a displeasing reply...";
- One of the many retellings of the Snow White tale appears in A Book of Dwarfs by Ruth Manning-Sanders.
- Tanith Lee's short story "Red as Blood" (published in her story collection of the same title).
- Jane Yolen's story "Snow in Summer," published in Black Swan, White Raven.
- Anne Sexton's poem "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," published in Transformations.
- A. S. Byatt's essay "Ice, Snow, Glass," published in Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.
- White as Snow, another retelling by Tanith Lee, combines elements of the Snow White story with the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone.
- Angela Carter has also written a postmodern version of the tale entitled "The Snow Child" in her collection The Bloody Chamber. Her story recreates a version of the tale collected but unpublished by the Grimm Brothers in which Snow White is a child of the father's desire rather than the mother's.
- Mirror, Mirror, a novel by Gregory Maguire is based on the tale of Snow White. Bianca De Nevada is the child of Don Vincente De Nevada, who finds a mirror in a lake, a relic placed there by the mysterious stone dwarfs. Don Vincente is sent on a holy quest for a branch from the Tree of Knowledge by Lucrezia Borgia and her brother Cesare, so that leaves Bianca under the watchful eye of the jealous Lucrezia.
- Jim C. Hines's Princess series of books include Snow White as one of the main protagonists. She is an accomplished sorceress of mirror magic, who works alongside Danielle (Cinderella) and Talia (Sleeping Beauty).
- Roald Dahl included a parody of Snow White in his Revolting Rhymes. The story begins traditionally until Snow White arrives at the dwarves' house, where she quickly discovers that they are compulsive gamblers on horse races, but are not very successful. Snow White goes back to the palace and steals her stepmother's magic mirror, which they use from then on to predict the winners of the races.
- The famous 1937 Disney animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The dwarfs are Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy and Dopey. In the Disney version, Snow White wakes from her enchanted sleep as soon as the Prince kisses her. Furthermore, the Prince and Snow White have met prior to her enchanted sleep, so that he has fallen in love with the awake rather than the sleeping princess, an unusual variation in the Snow White tales.[9] This version of Snow White appears at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts as a meetable character, and is part of the Disney Princesses franchise. She is voiced by Adriana Caselotti.
- The comedy-horror-erotic adaptation of Grimms' Fairy Tales, Grimms Märchen von Lüsternen Pärchen (1969), presented Snow White among other characters of Grimm Tales.
- In 1987, ABC debuted a sitcom based on the home life of Snow White and Prince Charming called The Charmings. The characters found themselves transported from their Enchanted Forest home to the Los Angeles suburbs, where they tried to adapt to life in the modern world.
- The 1987 fantasy film Snow White (starring Diana Rigg as the Wicked Queen and Sarah Patterson as Snow White) was released direct to video using the Cannon Movie Tale logo. Other fantasy films were released in the series. It is currently available on Region 1 DVD from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
- Nippon Animation told the story of Snow White in four episodes of its 1987 TV series Grimm Meisaku Gekijo (released in English as Grimms' Fairy Tale Classics).
- Filmation Studios produced a film (Happily Ever After) in 1988, starring Irene Cara, as if a sequel to the 1937 Disney film, meeting with the Seven Dwarfelles, the dwarfs' cousins. Released theatrically in 1993, the film was commercially a failure; the company had planned to create more unauthorized sequels to Disney films.
- The story is also adapted in the Japanese OVA, Super Mario's Snow White which King Koopa playing the role as the Evil Queen, Princess Peach as Snow White, Mario as her rescuer, and seven toads instead of seven dwarfs.
- Snow White has a role in the videogame Kingdom Hearts where she is one of the Princesses of Heart kidnapped by Maleficent along with Kairi, Alice, Jasmine, Belle, Cinderella, and Aurora.
- In 1994, the Tatsunoko animation studio adapted the story into a 52-episode TV series, Shirayuki-hime no Densetsu ("The Legend of Princess Snow White"), aired in Japan on NHK. Tatsunoko's production incorporated several "prelude" episodes emphasizing the romance between Snow White and her prince before launching into the story proper.
- Also in 1994, an animated version entitled Snow White by Enchanted Tales was released by Sony as part of their Enchanted Tales Collection.
- An adult film adapting the story is Biancaneve e i sette nani (1995) by Luca Damiano and starring Ludmilla Antonova.
- A segment of the 2005 Turkish anthology film Istanbul Tales made up of five stories based on popular fairy tales is based on this tale where the daughter of a mobster meets the eighth dwarf in underground tunnels.
- Another unofficial sequel of sorts was released in theaters in Belgium and France in January 2007: Blanche Neige, la suite (Snow White: The Sequel), an animated film for mature audiences. It was directed by Picha, who is known for his animated films of a sexually explicit nature.
- A present-day take on the story provide the setting for the 2011 ABC fantasy series Once Upon a Time, in which the daughter and grandson of Snow White and Prince Charming hold the key to breaking the curse on a small Maine town. In the fairy tale world, Snow's father (Richard Schiff) was killed by a genie from a lamp (who later became the Magic Mirror) because her stepmother the Evil Queen wanted her freedom.
- Grimm's Snow White (2012), produced by The Asylum, starring Jane March as The Queen, Eliza Bennett as Snow White and Jamie Thomas King as Prince Alexander, was released direct-to-video on February 28, 2012.
- A sadistic version of the Disney Snow White appears in German metal band Rammstein's video for the song Sonne. White is portrayed as a dominatrix and drug addict (who shoots up gold dust as a drug).
- Snow White is described with stalking and obsession overtones in the song "Snow White Queen" on Evanescence's album The Open Door. The title is only an indirect reference to Snow White, as it's referring to Evanescence lead singer Amy Lee's username (SnowWhite) on the official Evanescence fan forum.
- Snow White was also a song by Canadian Pop-Rock band Streetheart which alluded to a mischievous young woman who disguised her self as a pure, Snow White like figure.
- Mirrors by Envy on the Coast is a darker song dedicated to the tale of Snow White.
- Japanese visual kei rock band D released a single titled "Snow White" on January 21, 2009.
- The Cure's 2008 album "4:13 Dream" includes a song entitled "The Real Snow White."
- Xandria, a German band, also has a song named after Snow White.
- Japanese Band Sound Horizon released a song titled "The Princess Sleeping in the Glass Coffin", retelling Snow White in their 7th Album "Marchen". In this version, Snow White laughs madly during the torturing of her stepmother, so the prince ends up regreting(and maybe fleeing) from the marrige.
The story of Snow White is a popular theme for British pantomime.
- In 2009 Snow White was performed on Åbo Unga Teater in Finland.
- In some productions of the musical Into the Woods Snow White appears as the illicit love interest of one of the princes.
- Snow White is the central character in the long running musical Beach Blanket Babylon, which has been performed since 1974 in San Francisco.
- A modern adaptation of Snow White titled Snow was first performed in 2010 by a high school in British Colombia then moved to Toronto in 2012 and performed by Monarch Park Collegiate, taking on a new cast, for the Sears Drama Festival. The play, written by Kris Vopnfjord features all the characters from Walt Disney's adaptation but with a modern twist.
- Snow White: Happily Ever After (Super NES, 1994)
- Snow White: The Veil of My Heart (PC, 1999)
- Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Game Boy Color, 2001)
- Kagami no Naka no Orgel: Futatsume no Monogatari - Snow White (PC, 2003)
- Snow White and the 7 Clever Boys (PlayStation 2, 2006)
- Alabaster (PC, Mac, 2008)
- Snow White (iPhone, 2009)
- Crazy Face: Snow White (iPhone, 2010)
- Snow White StoryChimes Match Game (iPhone, 2010)
Snow White is featured as a playable character in Fairytale Fights.
She is shown in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep and makes a cameo appearance in the first Kingdom Hearts. Kurumi Kobato does her voice in Japanese, and Carolyn Gardner in English.
The birthplace of Maria Sophia Margaretha Catharina von Erthal: the Castle in
Lohr a. Main in the county of Main-Spessart, Germany, nowadays location of the Spessart Museum
The “Talking Mirror” in the Spessart Museum in Lohr am Main
In 1986 a German scholar reported that he believed the folktale of Snow White was based upon Maria Sophia Margaretha Catherina von Erthal, who was born in Lohr am Main in 1729.[15] Like Snow White, Maria Sophia was as a noble girl. After the death of Maria Sophia’s birth mother in 1741, Maria Sophia’s father remarried in 1743. The stepmother was domineering and employed her new position to the advantage of her children from her first marriage.[16]
A mirror referred to as “The Talking Mirror” can still be viewed today in the Spessart Museum in the Lohr Castle, where Maria Sophia was born. It was a product of the famous Lohr Mirror Manufacture (Kurmainzische Spiegelmanufaktur).[17]
There is another Brothers Grimm tale called Snow White and Rose Red which also includes a character called Snow White. However, this Snow White is a completely separate character from the one found in this tale. The original German names are also different: Schneewittchen and Schneeweißchen. There is actually no difference in the meaning (both mean "snow white"), but the first name is more influenced by the dialects of Low Saxon while the second one is the standard German version, demonstrating a class difference between the two Snow Whites.[citation needed]
The Walt Disney Company currently has a trademark application pending with the US Patent and Trademark Office, filed November 19, 2008, for the name "Snow White" that would cover all live and recorded movie, television, radio, stage, computer, Internet, news, and photographic entertainment uses, except literature works of fiction and nonfiction.[18]
- ^ Heidi Anne Heiner. "Tales Similar to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sevendwarfs/other.html. Retrieved 22 September 2010.
- ^ Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (Revise November 15, 2005). "Little Snow-White". University of Pittsburgh. http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm053.html. Retrieved 23 September 2010. On-line English text
- ^ Comminfo.rutgers.edu
- ^ Kay Stone, "Three Transformations of Snow White" pp 57-58 James M. McGlathery, ed. The Brothers Grimm and Folktale, ISBN 0-252-01549-5
- ^ Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, p 36, ISBN 0-691-06722-8
- ^ Eliade, Myth and Reality (New York) 1968:202, is expanded in N. J. Girardot, "Initiation and Meaning in the Tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", The Journal of American Folklore 90 No. 357 (July–September 1977:274-300).
- ^ J. G. v. Hahn (1864). Griechische und albanesische Märchen, Volume 2, "Schneewittchen", pp. 134–143. W. Engelmann, Leipzig.
- ^ Pushkin, Alexander: "The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights", Raduga Publishers, 1974
- ^ Terri Windling. "Snow, Glass, Apples: the story of Snow White". http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/forsga.html.
- ^ "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048591/. Retrieved 23 September 2010.
- ^ Barrett, Annie. "Julia Roberts' Snow White movie titled 'Mirror, Mirror' | Inside Movies | EW.com". Insidemovies.ew.com. http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/11/04/tarsem-singh-snow-white-mirror-mirror/. Retrieved 2012-05-27.
- ^ "Update: Relativity Confirms Julia Roberts In Snow White Pic". Deadline.com. http://www.deadline.com/2011/02/ryan-kavanaugh-gets-his-evil-queen-in-julia-roberts-as-snow-white-race-heats/?_r=true.
- ^ Breznican, Anthony (2011-03-26). "Armie Hammer cast as prince in 'Snow White'". Entertainment Weekly. http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/03/26/armie-hammer-snow-white/. Retrieved 2011-03-28.
- ^ http://twitter.com/#!/UniversalPics/status/70279005827383298
- ^ Karlheinz Bartels: Schneewittchen – Zur Fabulologie des Spessarts. Lohr 1990, publisher: Reinhart von Toerne, ISBN 3-9800281-4-3; cf. an academic review by Theodor Ruf: Die Schöne aus dem Glassarg. Schneewittchens märchenhaftes und wirkliches Leben. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1994, p. 12ff, 49ff; ISBN 3-88479-967-3
- ^ Werner Loibl, Schneewittchens herrische Stiefmutter (The domineering stepmother of Snow White), Lohrer Echo, 28.08.1992 with further references
- ^ Werner Loibl, Die kurmainzische Spiegelmanufaktur Lohr am Main in der Zeit Kurfürst Lothar Franz von Schönborn (1698-1729), p.277f, in the catalogue: Glück und Glas, Zur Kulturgeschichte des Spessarts, Munich, 1984; Loibl is the foremost expert in the history of 17th- and 18th-century glasshouses in Germany, according to Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk, Curator of European Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass (Corning, NY)
- ^ "US Patent and Trademark Office – Snow White trademark status". http://tarr.uspto.gov/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77618057&action=Request+Status. Retrieved March 25, 2010.
- Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, edited and translated by Stanley Appelbaum, Selected Folktales/Ausgewählte Märchen: A Dual-Language Book Dover Publications Inc. Mineola, New York. ISBN 0-486-42474-X
- Jones, Steven Swann. The New Comparative Method: Structural and Symbolic Analysis of the allomotifs of "Snow White". Helsinki, 1990. FFC., N 247.
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