Fairy Tale Friday--The Origins of Snow White

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

Previously on Fairy Tale Friday we have explored Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. Each one of these tales had hundreds of versions of each tale available free in the public domain. Each one of these stories took well over a year to share on a weekly basis. It is harder to find fairy tales where this much material is available and not subject to copyright, but I will do my best. What we can't find in written versions we make up for in film versions, so there will still be plenty to share. 

For the next Fairy Tale Friday topic I have chosen the tale of Snow White which is classified as number 709 in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Tale Type Classification (ATU).

Just a quick refresher course about how the ATU index came about:

Antti Aarne was a Finnish folklorist and began the classification system used today to categorise folk tales. He first published his classification system in 1910. In 1920, Stith Thompson translated Aarne's work and expanded it making the Aarne-Thompson Classification. In 1961, Thompson published an updated version of Aarne's catalogue and created the AT Number System. The AT Number system was updated and expanded in 2004 by Hans-Jörg Uther where it became known as the ATU Classification System. 

What was your first exposure to the tale of Snow White?

Most likely it was the Disney animated film, however Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has existed in many versions in the centuries preceding Disney. The most famous (though not the earliest) literary version of this tale was collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812, but the story of Snow White was well known before it was published by the Grimms and appeared with little variation from Ireland to Asia Minor to Central Africa.  Except for one Portuguese tale which appeared in Brazil, the tale did not apparently travel verbally to the Americas which is unusual as the other tales we have looked at have had versions from all nations and all cultures. 

Many of the earlier version are quite gruesome with the Queen demanding parts of Snow White’s body (heart, liver or lungs) as proof of her death with the intention to eat them. Later versions often sanitised this cannibalistic element. Disney based his film on the Grimm's version of the tale and so included the aspect of the Queen asking for the heart of Snow White. source: SURLALUNE.

What are the elements we expect in a Snow White story?

According to FAIRY TALE FANDOM:

The fairy tale features such elements as the Magic Mirror, the poisoned apple, the sleeping enchantment, the glass coffin, and the characters of the beautiful princess and titular character Snow White, the Evil Queen (Snow White's wicked stepmother), the Huntsman, a handsome prince, and Seven Dwarves. 

It is worth noting that all of these elements are based on the Grimms’ tale.

Was Snow White fictional or based on something real?

This is where the story gets interesting.  ANCIENT ORIGINS has this to say about it:

In 1994, a German historian named Eckhard Sander published Schneewittchen: Marchen oder Wahrheit? (Snow White: Is It a Fairy Tale?) , claiming he had uncovered an account that may have inspired the story that first appeared in Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

According to Sander, the character of Snow White was based on the life of Margarete von Waldeck, a German countess born to Philip IV in 1533. At the age of 16, Margarete was forced by her stepmother, Katharina of Hatzfeld to move away to Wildungen in Brussels. There, Margarete fell in love with a prince who would later become Phillip II of Spain.

Margarete’s father and stepmother disapproved of the relationship as it was ‘politically inconvenient’.  Margarete mysteriously died at the age of 21, apparently having been poisoned. Historical accounts point to the King of Spain, who opposing the romance, may have dispatched Spanish agents to murder Margarete.

So what about the seven dwarfs? Margarete's father owned several copper mines that employed children as quasi-slaves. The poor conditions caused many to die at a young age, but those that survived had severely stunted growth and deformed limbs from malnutrition and the hard physical labour. As a result, they were often referred to as the ‘poor dwarfs’. As for the poison apple, Sanders believes this stems from an historical event in German history in which an old man was arrested for giving poison apples to children who he believed were stealing his fruit.

The ‘talking mirror’ constructed in 1720 that furnished the home of Maria’s stepmother, the Countess of Reichenstein

Not everyone is convinced by Sander’s claim that Snow White’s character stems from the life of Margarete von Waldeck. According to a study group in Lohr, Bavaria, Snow White is based on Maria Sophia von Erthal, born on 15 June, 1729 in Lohr am Main, Bavaria. She was the daughter of 18th century landowner, Prince Philipp Christoph von Erthal and his wife, Baroness von Bettendorff.

After the death of the Baroness, Prince Philipp went onto marry Claudia Elisabeth Maria von Venningen, Countess of Reichenstein, who was said to dislike her stepchildren.  The castle where they lived, now a museum, was home to a ‘talking mirror’, an acoustical toy that could speak (now housed in the Spessart Museum). The mirror, constructed in 1720 by the Mirror Manufacture of the Electorate of Mainz in Lohr, had been in the house during the time that Maria’s stepmother lived there. The dwarfs in Maria’s story are also linked to a mining town, Bieber, located just west of Lohr and set among seven mountains. The smallest tunnels could only be accessed by very short miners, who often wore bright hoods, as the dwarfs have frequently been depicted over the years.

The Lohr study group maintain that the glass coffin may be linked to the region’s famous glassworks, while the poisoned apple, may be associated with the deadly nightshade poison that grows in abundance in Lohr.

Very interesting stuff. I look forward to sharing Snow White with you over the coming months.