The story
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1785–1863 · 1786–1859)
From Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales), first published in 1812. Retold here in our own words.
Once in winter a queen sat sewing by an ebony window frame, and she pricked her finger, and three drops of blood fell on the snow. "If only I had a child," she sighed, "with skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony." Soon she had a daughter just so, and they named her Snow White, but the queen died, and the king married again.
The new queen was beautiful but proud, and she owned a magic mirror. Every morning she asked: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is fairest of us all?" And the mirror always answered: "You, my queen, are fairest of all." Then Snow White grew up, and one morning the mirror said: "My queen, you are fair, but Snow White is a thousand times fairer." The queen turned yellow and green with envy, and from that hour her heart was set on one thing: Snow White must die.
She called a huntsman. "Take the child into the forest and kill her," she ordered, "and bring me her heart as proof." The huntsman obeyed, but when Snow White begged for her life, his pity won. "Run away, poor child," he said, and he killed a young boar and brought its heart to the queen, who had it cooked and ate it, believing it was Snow White's.
Snow White ran through the forest until evening, when she found a tiny cottage. Inside, everything was small: seven little beds, seven little plates, seven little cups. Hungry and tired, she ate a little from each plate, drank a little from each cup, and fell asleep across the seven beds. The owners came home at nightfall: seven dwarfs who dug for ore in the mountains. They held up their lanterns and cried: "What a beautiful child!" They let her stay, and she kept their house while they worked.
But the mirror told the queen the truth: "Beyond the seven mountains, with the seven dwarfs, Snow White lives still." Three times the queen disguised herself and came to the cottage. First as a peddler woman, she laced Snow White's bodice so tight the girl fell breathless, but the dwarfs cut the lace. Then as another old woman, she combed her hair with a poisoned comb, and again the dwarfs saved her. The third time she came as a farmer's wife with a poisoned apple, red on one side and white on the other. Snow White hesitated, so the queen cut the apple and ate the white half herself. Snow White bit the red half, and fell down dead.
The dwarfs wept for three days. She looked too beautiful to bury, so they made a glass coffin, laid her in it, and set it on a mountain, where they took turns to watch. One day a prince came riding by and saw the maiden in the glass. "Let me have the coffin," he begged, "I cannot live without seeing her." The dwarfs, moved, gave it to him, and his servants carried it away. But they stumbled on a bush, and the jolt shook the poisoned piece of apple from Snow White's throat. She opened her eyes, lifted the lid, and lived.
The wedding was celebrated with great joy, and the wicked queen was invited. She asked her mirror: "Who is fairest of us all?" and the mirror said: "The young queen is a thousand times fairer." She arrived trembling with rage, and there stood Snow White. Red-hot iron shoes were brought in, and the queen was forced to dance in them until she fell down dead: the punishment for her envy.
Moral and themes
Envy destroys the envier. The queen's beauty is real, but her need to be the fairest turns her into a murderer, and every attempt to kill Snow White only proves the mirror right. Snow White survives through kindness: the huntsman's pity, the dwarfs' shelter, the prince's devotion. The tale's justice is stark, but its point is clear: goodness gathers protectors, while envy ends alone, dancing in iron shoes.
Reading note
The Grimms' Snow White is darker and stranger than the familiar cartoon. The queen eats what she believes is her stepdaughter's heart; the murder attempts come in threes, each more intimate than the last; and the ending punishes the queen with a cruelty the modern reader flinches at. But notice the tale's real engine: the mirror. It never lies, and the queen's tragedy is that she keeps asking a question whose answer she cannot bear. Snow White herself barely acts; she endures, she is kind, and the world arranges her rescue. It is a story about surviving other people's obsessions.