Snow White Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale Full Original Retelling 

Once upon a time, in a kingdom where the winters bit like iron and the mirrors reflected more than faces, there lived a queen who longed for a child. One cold midwinter day, as she sewed beside a window framed with ebony, she pricked her finger. Three drops of blood fell upon the snow below. “Oh, how I wish for a daughter as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony,” she whispered.

Not long after, her wish came true. A daughter was born - Snow White, and she grew with cheeks like the ripest rose, lips like cherries, and hair as dark as the midnight sky. But joy, as often in the Grimm world, drew the gaze of envy. The queen, Snow White’s mother, died, and the king remarried a woman of great beauty and terrible pride.

This new queen possessed a magic mirror, and daily she would ask, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” Every day, the mirror answered, “You, my queen, are fairest of all.” And every day, she believed it - until one morning, the mirror spoke a truth she could not bear:

“You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But Snow White is a thousand times fairer than you.”

Her face twisted with rage, and her envy hardened into cruelty. She summoned a huntsman, a man of sinew and loyalty to the crown, and commanded him to take Snow White into the forest and kill her. “Bring me back her heart,” she said, “as proof that she is no more.”

The huntsman led Snow White far into the shadowed forest, but when she begged for mercy, her innocence struck him. He could not kill her. Instead, he let her flee and brought back to the queen the heart of a wild boar, dripping and bloody, as false proof.

Alone, terrified, Snow White wandered deeper into the forest, until she stumbled upon a tiny cottage. Inside lived seven dwarfs, miners by trade, who worked with pickaxes and hammers in the dark veins of the mountains. They agreed to let her stay - in exchange for keeping house - and Snow White, grateful and kind, became their sister and companion.

But the queen’s mirror, ever truthful, soon revealed that Snow White still lived. Enraged, the queen concocted three cunning attempts to destroy her stepdaughter:

1. A bodice tightly laced - she visited Snow White disguised as an old peddler woman, offering a lace for the bodice. Snow White, unsuspecting, allowed herself to be bound, and she nearly suffocated, but the dwarfs returned in time and loosened the cords.
2. A poisoned comb - again, disguised, the queen offered a comb. Snow White fell into unconsciousness from its deadly teeth, only to be saved once more by the dwarfs’ vigilance.
3. A poisoned apple - the final, most devious device. The queen offered a red, flawless apple, divided so one half was sweet, the other hidden with a blackened core of poison. Snow White, unsuspecting, took a bite… and fell into a deathlike slumber.

This time, even the dwarfs could not awaken her. They laid her in a glass coffin, weeping for the girl whose beauty and innocence had survived envy and danger so long. And the forest mourned with them - birds silent, winds hushed, shadows heavy.

Years passed. One day, a prince traveling through the mountains saw Snow White. Struck by her beauty, he begged the dwarfs to let him take her to the castle. As her coffin was moved, the piece of poisoned apple dislodged from her throat - and she awoke.

The prince declared his love, and soon they married. And the queen, upon learning that Snow White not only lived but now thrived in happiness, suffered the grim justice she had so long evaded: she was summoned to the wedding, and there, in the cold glare of truth, she met her doom, forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she fell dead.

Thus Snow White triumphed, but not without the scars of envy and cruelty lingering like shadows. In the Grimm world, beauty and innocence are precious, yes - but evil is punished with a cruelty as sharp as the darkness that bore it.

Snow White lived on with the prince, ever aware that life’s sweetest joys are often tempered by the bitterest trials.

💌  “Never forget,  a mirror tells truth, and envy never sleeps. Always guard your heart… and your apple.”