Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.
This week we look at a fascinating and very creepy
short story made 1000 times more amazing as it was turned into a beautifully
art deco style illustrated graphic novel. Snow, Glass, Apples is a short
story written in 1994 by Neil
Gaiman originally released as a benefit book for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. It was included in Gaiman's short story
collection Smoke and Mirrors in 1998. In
2019 it was released as a graphic novel illustrated by Colleen
Doran (who also illustrated the graphic novel version of Gaiman’s Troll Bridge). The graphic novel won the 2020 Eisner
Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (very well deserved.)
I will just let Wikipedia tell you everything as they summarise
it so well:
The story retells the famous fairy tale of Snow White from
the point of view of Snow White's stepmother, who is traditionally
the villain of the piece. The stepmother is depicted as struggling desperately
to save the kingdom from her unnatural and monstrous stepdaughter. Ultimately
she is unsuccessful, as the "happy ending" of the original story
still takes place despite her best efforts to prevent it.
The story incorporates themes of vampirism, incest, pedophilia,
and necrophilia.
Note:
Can you see why I think it would have been influenced by Red as Blood by Tanith
Lee that we looked at last week?
The story is told by the stepmother who is
revealed to have had magical powers from a very young age, including visions of
the future. She later marries a king and describes his daughter, Snow White, as
a mysterious, vampiric young girl. The king ultimately dies from abuse, both
physical and sexual, by Snow White and leaves the stepmother to reign as queen.
The stepmother eventually has her huntsmen murder Snow White and cut out her
heart, which still beats continuously even after being removed and is hung in
the queen's private chambers. Following large numbers of disappearances and
murders in the kingdom, the queen uses magic and her own blood to create
enchanted apples which she brings into the woods to a still-living Snow White.
The queen becomes scared and flees but knows that the creature ate the apples
when Snow White's removed heart finally stops beating. Two years later, a
prince visits the queen and she plans to marry him and unite their kingdoms.
However the queen is unable to sexually satisfy the prince, who is clearly a
necrophiliac, and he leaves. On his way home to his kingdom, the prince
encounters the dead body of Snow White being guarded by seven dwarves.
Indulging his necrophilia, the prince rapes Snow White and unwittingly
dislodges the piece of apple stuck in Snow White's throat, resurrecting her.
The prince and Snow White eventually return to the queen's kingdom and sentence
her to death for witchcraft. The queen is incinerated in a kiln and the story is
revealed to be her final thoughts and reflections as she begins to burn to
death.
Wow. Just wow. If after reading the description you
are hungry to read more, I have a link where you can read the whole story. I am
not copying and pasting it here because the website says This story is
posted to The Dreaming by permission. Please do not duplicate/copy/distribute
this story without permission from Neil or the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund. But
all you have to do is click here to read SNOW, GLASS, APPLES .
But even if you are now afraid to read the extremely
creepy story, you will still want to see some of the illustrations. Click on them to enlarge and really see the details.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for another 3 word title.
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