Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (EN)

Little Snow White – Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm
“Once upon a time in midwinter, when the snowflakes were falling like feathers from heaven, a queen sat sewing at her window, which had a frame of black ebony wood. As she sewed, she looked up at the snow and pricked her finger with her needle. Three drops of blood fell into the snow. The red on the white looked so beautiful that she thought to herself, "If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood in this frame.
Soon afterward she had a little daughter who was as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony wood, and therefore they called her Little Snow-White. And as soon as the child was born, the queen died.
A year later the king took himself another wife. She was a beautiful woman, but she was proud and arrogant, and she could not stand it if anyone might surpass her in beauty. She had a magic mirror. Every morning, she stood before it, looked at herself, and said: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?
To this the mirror answered: You, my queen, are fairest of all.
Then she was satisfied, for she knew that the mirror spoke the truth.
Snow-White grew up and became ever more beautiful. When she was seven years old, she was as beautiful as the light of day, even more beautiful than the queen herself.
One day when the queen asked her mirror: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?
It answered: You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But Snow-White is a thousand times fairer than you.
The queen took fright and turned yellow and green with envy. From that hour on whenever she looked at Snow-White her heart turned over inside her body, so great was her hatred for the girl. The envy and pride grew ever greater, like a weed in her heart, until she had no Peace Day and night.
Then she summoned a huntsman and said to him, "Take Snow-White out into the woods. I never want to see her again. Kill her, and as proof that she is dead bring her lungs and her liver back to me."
The huntsman obeyed and took Snow-White into the woods. He took out his hunting knife and was about to stab it into her innocent heart when she began to cry, saying, "Oh, dear huntsman, let me live. I will run into the wild woods and never come back."
Because she was so beautiful the huntsman took pity on her, and he said, "Run away, you poor child."
He thought, "The wild animals will soon devour you anyway," but still it was as if a stone had fallen from his heart, for he would not have to kill her.
Just then a young boar came running by. He killed it, cut out its lungs and liver, and took them back to the queen as proof of Snow-White's death. The cook had to boil them with salt, and the wicked woman ate them, supposing that she had eaten Snow-White's lungs and liver.
The poor child was now all alone in the great forest, and she was so afraid that she just looked at all the leaves on the trees and did not know what to do. Then she began to run. She ran over sharp stones and through thorns, and wild animals jumped at her, but they did her no harm. She ran as far as her feet could carry her, and just as evening was about to fall, she saw a little house and went inside to rest.
Inside the house everything was small, but so neat and clean that no one could say otherwise. There was a little table with a white tablecloth and seven little plates, and each plate had a spoon, and there were seven knives and forks and seven mugs as well. Against the wall there were seven little beds, all standing in a row and covered with snow-white sheets.
Because she was so hungry and thirsty Snow-White ate a few vegetables and a little bread from each little plate, and from each mug she drank a drop of wine. Afterward, because she was so tired, she lay down on a bed, but none of them felt right -- one was too long, the other too short -- until finally the seventh one was just right. She remained lying in it, entrusted herself to God, and fell asleep.
After dark the masters of the house returned home. They were the seven dwarfs who picked and dug for ore in the mountains. They lit their seven candles, and as soon as it was light in their house, they saw that someone had been there, for not everything was in the same order as they had left it.
The first one said, "Who has been sitting in my chair?"
The second one, "Who has been eating from my plate?"
The third one, "Who has been eating my bread?"
The fourth one, "Who has been eating my vegetables?"
The fifth one, "Who has been sticking with my fork?"
The sixth one, "Who has been cutting with my knife?"
The seventh one, "Who has been drinking from my mug?"
Then the first one saw a that there was a little imprint in his bed, and said, "Who stepped on my bed?"
The others came running up and shouted, "Someone has been lying in mine as well."
But the seventh one, looking at his bed, found Snow-White lying there asleep. The seven dwarfs all came running up, and they cried out with amazement. They fetched their seven candles and shone the light on Snow-White. "Oh, good heaven! Oh, good heaven!" they cried. "This child is so beautiful!"
They were so happy, that they did not wake her up, but let her continue to sleep there in the bed. The seventh dwarf had to sleep with his companions, one hour with each one, and then the night was done.
The next morning Snow-White woke up, and when she saw the seven dwarfs she was frightened. But they were friendly and asked, "What is your name?"
"My name is Snow-White," she answered.
"How did you find your way to our house?" the dwarfs asked further.
Then she told them that her stepmother had tried to kill her, that the huntsman had spared her life, and that she had run the entire day, finally coming to their house.
The dwarfs said, "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."
"Yes," said Snow-White, "with all my heart."
So she kept house for them. Every morning, they went into the mountains looking for ore and gold, and in the evening when they came back home their meal had to be ready. During the day the girl was alone.
The good dwarfs warned her, saying, "Be careful about your stepmother. She will soon know that you are here. Do not let anyone in."
Now the queen, believing that she had eaten Snow-White's lungs and liver, could only think that she was again the first and the most beautiful woman of all. She stepped before her mirror and said: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?
It answered: You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But Snow-White, beyond the mountains with the seven dwarfs, is still a thousand times fairer than you.
This startled the queen, for she knew that the mirror did not lie, and she realized that the huntsman had deceived her, and that Snow-White was still alive. Then she thought, and thought again, how she could kill Snow-White, for as long if she was not the most beautiful woman in the entire land her envy would give her no rest.
At last, she thought of something. Colouring her face, she disguised herself as an old peddler woman, so that no one would recognize her. In this disguise she went to the house of the seven dwarfs. Knocking on the door she called out, "Beautiful wares for sale, for sale!"
Snow-White peered out the window and said, "Good day, dear woman, what do you have for sale?"
"Good wares, beautiful wares," she answered. "Bodice laces in all colours." And she took out one that was braided from colourful silk. "Would you like this one?"
"I can let that honest woman in," thought Snow-White, then unbolted the door and bought the pretty bodice lace.
"Child," said the old woman, "how you look! Come, let me lace you up properly."
The unsuspecting Snow-White stood before her and let her do up the new lace, but the old woman pulled so quickly and so hard that Snow-White could not breathe.
"You used to be the most beautiful one," said the old woman, and hurried away.
Not long afterward, in the evening time, the seven dwarfs came home. How terrified they were when they saw their dear Snow-White lying on the ground, not moving at all, as though she were dead. They lifted her up, and, seeing that she was too tightly laced, they cut the lace in two. Then she began to breathe a little, and little by little she came back to life.
When the dwarfs heard what had happened, they said, "The old peddler woman was no one else but the godless queen. Take care and let no one in when we are not with you."
When the wicked woman returned home, she went to her mirror and asked: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?
The mirror answered once again: You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But Snow-White, beyond the mountains with the seven dwarfs, is still a thousand times fairer than you.
When she heard that, all her blood ran to her heart because she knew that Snow-White had come back to life. "This time," she said, "I shall think of something that will destroy you."
Then with the art of witchcraft, which she understood, she made a poisoned comb. Then she disguised herself, taking the form of a different old woman. Thus, she went across the seven mountains to the seven dwarfs, knocked on the door, and called out, "Good wares for sale, for sale!"
Snow-White looked out and said, "Go on your way. I am not allowed to let anyone in."
"You surely may take a look," said the old woman, pulling out the poisoned comb and holding it up. The child liked it so much that she let herself be deceived, and she opened the door.
After they had agreed on the purchase, the old woman said, "Now let me comb your hair properly."
She had barely stuck the comb into Snow-White's hair when the poison took effect, and the girl fell down unconscious.
"You specimen of beauty," said the wicked woman, "now you are finished." And she walked away.
Fortunately it was almost evening, and the seven dwarfs came home. When they saw Snow-White lying on the ground as if she were dead, they immediately suspected her stepmother. They examined her and found the poisoned comb. They had scarcely pulled it out when Snow-White came to herself again and told them what had happened. Once again, they warned her to be on guard and not to open the door for anyone.
Back at home the queen stepped before her mirror and said: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?
The mirror answered: You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But Snow-White, beyond the mountains with the seven dwarfs, is still a thousand times fairer than you.
When the queen heard the mirror saying this, she shook and trembled with anger, "Snow-White shall die," she shouted, "if it costs me my life!"
Then she went into her most secret room -- no one else was allowed inside -- and she made a poisoned, poisoned apple. From the outside it was beautiful, white with red cheeks, and anyone who saw it would want it. But anyone who might eat a little piece of it would die. Then, colouring her face, she disguised herself as a peasant woman, and thus went across the seven mountains to the seven dwarfs. She knocked on the door.
Snow-White stuck her head out the window and said, "I am not allowed to let anyone in. The dwarfs have forbidden me to do so."
"That is all right with me," answered the peasant woman. "I'll easily get rid of my apples. Here, I'll give you one of them."
"No," said Snow-White, "I cannot accept anything."
"Are you afraid of poison?" asked the old woman. "Look, I'll cut the apple in two. You eat the red half, and I shall eat the white half."
Now the apple had been so artfully made that only the red half was poisoned. Snow-White longed for the beautiful apple, and when she saw that the peasant woman was eating part of it she could no longer resist, and she stuck her hand out and took the poisoned half. She barely had a bite in her mouth when she fell to the ground dead.
The queen looked at her with a gruesome stare, laughed loudly, and said, "White as snow, red as blood, black as ebony wood! This time the dwarfs cannot awaken you."
Back at home she asked her mirror: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?
It finally answered: You, my queen, are fairest of all.
Then her envious heart was at rest, as well as an envious heart can be at rest.
When the dwarfs came home that evening they found Snow-White lying on the ground. She was not breathing at all. She was dead. They lifted her up and looked for something poisonous. They undid her laces. They combed her hair. They washed her with water and wine. But nothing helped. The dear child was dead, and she remained dead. They laid her on a bier, and all seven sat next to her and mourned for her and cried for three days. They were going to bury her, but she still looked as fresh as a living person, and still had her beautiful red cheeks.
They said, "We cannot bury her in the black earth," and they had a transparent glass coffin made, so she could be seen from all sides. They laid her inside, and with golden letters wrote on it her name, and that she was a princess. Then they put the coffin outside on a mountain, and one of them always stayed with it and watched over her. The animals too came and mourned for Snow-white, first an owl, then a raven, and finally a dove.
Snow-White lay there in the coffin a long, long time, and she did not decay, but looked like she was asleep, for she was still as white as snow and as red as blood, and as black-haired as ebony wood.
Now it came to pass that a prince entered these woods and happened onto the dwarfs' house, where he sought shelter for the night. He saw the coffin on the mountain with beautiful Snow-White in it, and he read what was written on it with golden letters.
Then he said to the dwarfs, "Let me have the coffin. I will give you anything you want for it."
But the dwarfs answered, "We will not sell it for all the gold in the world."
Then he said, "Then give it to me, for I cannot live without being able to see Snow-White. I will honour her and respect her as my most cherished one."
As he thus spoke, the good dwarfs felt pity for him and gave him the coffin. The prince had his servants carry it away on their shoulders. But then it happened that one of them stumbled on some brush, and this dislodged from Snow-White's throat the piece of poisoned apple that she had bitten off. Not long afterward she opened her eyes, lifted the lid from her coffin, sat up, and was alive again.
"Good heavens, where am I?" she cried out.
The prince said joyfully, "You are with me." He told her what had happened, and then said, "I love you more than anything else in the world. Come with me to my father's castle. You shall become my wife." Snow-White loved him, and she went with him. Their wedding was planned with great splendour and majesty.
Snow-White's godless stepmother was also invited to the feast. After putting on her beautiful clothes she stepped before her mirror and said: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?
The mirror answered: You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But the young queen is a thousand times fairer than you.
The wicked woman uttered a curse, and she became so frightened, so frightened, that she did not know what to do. At first, she did not want to go to the wedding, but she found no peace. She had to go and see the young queen. When she arrived, she recognized Snow-White, and terrorized, she could only stand there without moving.
Then they put a pair of iron shoes into burning coals. They were brought forth with tongs and placed before her. She was forced to step into the red-hot shoes and dance until she fell dead.

This is the first version of the Snow White’s fairytale written by Brothers Grimm in 1812 and then edited multiple times to please its readers.
Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm and Wilhelm Karl Grimm on the wave of the nineteenth-century romantic nationalism and because of their philological and linguistic studies, traveled many central European regions to collect folklore traditions and popular fairytales and to gather them into a book called Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Fairytales for children and home) written between 1812-1822. Many of these fairytales had been modified while orally passed down from generation to generation and depending on the region in which they were transferred they changed to adapt to the local traditions. Collecting them, Brothers Grimm assembled contaminated versions of them picking up and combining different pieces from different regions. Their will was to give these fairytales a social useful moral which could have helped them to build the idea of a unified and strong German Country.
In this essay, I would like to analyse Snow White’s fairytale in its Disney’s film adaptation, dating back to 1937.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is the first animated feature film that Disney brought to the big screen and, inevitably, it has marked the history of cinema. By leaving out aspects about which I am no expert, such as the quality, the drawing etc. I would like to talk about this animated film costumes and, at the end, leaving you with a little historical curiosity.
How can animated film costumes can be judged? Obviously being them drawn they can be as crazy as the designers want them to be because they do not need to be created and worn in real life, but I would like to analyse their historical reliability and see if they could potentially exist.

According to some historians, Snow White’s fairytale could derive not only from folklore, but also from reality. Apparently, in Germany would exist two Snow Whites and they would have lived in two different historical periods.
In 1994, the historian Eckhard Sander published a book about Snow White’s fairytale origins, and he identified the main character with Margaretha von Waldeck born in 1533 and died at the very young age of 21. This young and beautiful noble lady, Philip IV’s count of Waldeck-Wildungen’s daughter, had a very severe stepmother, Caterina of Hatzfeld (1510-1546) who forced her into exile in Brussels.
According to the legend, in Brussels Margaretha met the crown prince of Spain, Philip, and they fell in love. Unable to be together because of their different religious believes, the two of them parted and Margaretha died at 21 after a sudden and drastic deterioration of her health conditions. At that time, many believed that Margaretha had been poisoned by who did not want her to marry crown prince Philip, and even if her stepmother had been cleared from murder accusations, the link between Margaretha and Snow White’s stories remains evident. It also must be considered that Margaretha’s father owned many copper mines, in which used to work, as slaves, children who, because of their height, can be clearly associated with the fairytale dwarves. For this last reason, the mining village of Bergfreiheit, still existing today in Bad Wildungen district, calls itself Schneewittchendorf, Snow White’s village.

On the other hand, according to Karlheinz Bartels, Snow White would have been inspired by Maria Sophia Margaretha Catharina Von Erthal born in 1725 in Lohr, close to Frankfurt. She was the daughter of the local prince, Philipp Christoph von Erthal who, after two years of widowhood, married Claudia Elisabeth von Reichenstein. This woman threw Maria Sophia out of the palace, forcing her to seek refuge in a close mining village. Again, the links between Maria Sophia and Snow White are clear, but this time I need to add that because of the wickedness of Claudia Elisabeth and the kindness of Maria Sophia, thereof she almost became a saint to the villagers and the miners who passed down her story.
This legend became so famous that nowadays Von Erthal Castle is a touristic attraction, mainly because of a talking mirror that can be seen in there. This mirror, with no doubt considered magical in the eighteenth century, can pronounce some sentences thanks to complex artisanal mechanisms and because of this ability it resembles the Mirror of Erised that we read about in Brothers Grimm’s fairytale.

Clearly nobody will ever be able to determine who between Margaretha and Maria Sophia was the real Snow White, or if none of them was, but it is also clear that Walt Disney chose to base his princess upon Margaretha von Waldeck and therefore he dressed the animated version of her in sixteenth century costumes.
At the beginning, Disney designers based Snow White’s figure on Betty Boop (who made her successful debut in 1930), but Walt Disney did not approved their choice, considering Betty Boop too sexy and provocative to impersonate a fairytale princess thought to entertain children.
Marjorie Celeste Champion, Hollywood actress and dancer, became the new Snow White’s model then and she would also be the inspiration for Disney’s Pinocchio’s Blue Fairy years later.

Disney’s Snow White was born and she was a mixture of a 1920’s woman and a German noble lady from the sixteenth century in her iconic dress: high starched collar, waist tightening corset (not high anymore as it was in the medieval times) and puffed sleeves with vertical cuts.
Starting from Early Middle Ages, mainly in countries as cold as Germany, people had the need to fully cover their bodies with many layers one on top of the other. The first layer was a long wool petticoat, worn both by men and women. During Renaissance, the female version of this petticoat started to be called Gamurra and to differentiate itself from the male one. The Gamurra was a very long dress, wool made, quite tight and usually closed with buttons on the front and ribbons on the back or the sides. The more the woman was rich, the more the Gamurra was luxurious and therefore, to show their richness, noble women started to vertically cut the garment they wore on top of the Gamurra, to show it underneath and make its richness and its whiteness visible. Over time, Gamurra became more and more decorated and precious, so precious that some of them were kept in lockboxes with jewelry and gold.
The most luxurious piece to wear and show in XVI century was what we nowadays call underwear. The mere fact of having underwear to wear made you a noble, showing it being bright white and clean meant you did not have to work to survive, and you had servants to keep your clothes clean. These are the main reasons why showing underwear was so important at that time, important enough to cut the outer garments to open a window on your lingerie.
If we look at Snow White’s iconic dress and we confront it with typical German noble women costume from XVI century, we right away notice all the similarities and the characteristics we just talked about: long corset, puffed sleeves with vertical cuts and long soft skirt with many white petticoats.

In the cartoon, Snow White also wears a patched dress that shows us the slavery condition in which her stepmother kept her. This dress is much simpler than the blue and yellow one and it shows many traditional German characteristics such as clogs. According to some historians, this dress was a message that Disney wanted to send to all the American women that were going through hard times and poverty caused by the 1929 Great Depression.
Snow White, as many other Disney princesses, started fashion trands and not only during her times, but also many years later when fashion brands like Cartier, Valentino or Coach launched collections inspired by her character and fairytale.


Different and more complex is talking about the Evil Queen, Grimhild.
Her character has been inspired by the Valkyrie Gudrun (or Kriemhild), Siegfried's wife in the Nibelung Saga, a very famous and important German epic poem; but, appearance-wise her model was the universally known actress Joan Crawford.
Her costume, unlike the Snow White’s one, is a medieval dress, inspired by the Uta von Ballenstedts’ Statue in Naumburg. Uta was the Margrave of Meissen’s wife and she had been one of the most important female figure of the German history; she lived between 1000 and 1046.
If, has we have said before, consider this animated film set in XVI century, then we have to say that Grimhild’s costume is NOT historically accurate.

Regarding Prince Charming’s costume, it appears to be perfectly matching with Snow White’s one, even in the colors. The style of the costume resembles the style of young noble men’s clothes from 1500 Germany and being blue one of the most expensive dyes during that period, it perfectly shows him as a prince from the first frame.

Finally, the Dwarves. According to historical sources, to remain visible even in the distance and in the dark of the tunnels, miners used to wear very bright and colorful hats, exactly as the Dwarves of this cartoon do. Most of the times miners were children because tunnels were so small that a normal-height adult could not enter them and, again most of the time, because of their hard work and them spending so much time without seeing the sun, those children did not grow normally and they remain very short. Dwarves, in a fantasy world, would be the best creatures to metaphorically represent them.


Last but not least, the historical curiosity I promised you!
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” was released in 1937, right before the Second World War started and, also, right before Nazis opening of the concentration camps.
In 1942, the artist Annemarie Dine Gottlieb, a Jewish woman from a small village close to Prague, and her mother were arrested by Gestapo and after a short imprisonment in Theresienstadt Jewish ghetto they were deported in Auschwitz.
Passionate about art and painting, the young Dina saw Snow White’s animated film 1938 and she was extremely fascinated by it. One day, a man who came from the same Jewish ghetto as her, asked her to paint a mural on to a wall of the children area in the concentration camp and she painted a scene from that movie. The scene was the one in which Snow White dances with the dwarves and it was painted so well that an SS official called Dina to his office: he made her the official portraitist of the camp.
The doctor Josef Mengele wanted to build an archive of human facial and physical features based on their races, to demonstrate how some features are typical of a specific race and how Jewish and Romani features are ugly and animal like compared to the Ariani ones. Dina started to work for Mengele painting portraits of the prisoners and because of her work she saved herself and her mother from death.
After the Liberation, Dina became a famous cartoonist and started to fight a battle to have all the portraits she painted back. She died before she could complete her mission, so now her daughter is carrying it on.