Snow-White and Rose-Red

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Snow-White and Rose-Red
Smithsnowred.jpg
Snow-White and Rose-Red by
Jessie Willcox Smith, 1911
Folk tale
NameSnow-White and Rose-Red
Data
Aarne–Thompson groupingATU 426 (The Two Girls, the Bear and the Dwarf)
RegionGermany
Published inKinder- und Hausmärchen, by the Brothers Grimm

"Snow-White and Rose-Red" (German: Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot) is a German fairy tale. The best-known version is the one collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 161).[1] An older, somewhat shorter version, "The Ungrateful Dwarf", was written by Caroline Stahl (1776–1837). Indeed, that appears to be the oldest variant; no previous oral version is known, although several have been collected since its publication in 1818.[2] Oral versions are very limited regionally.[3] The tale is of Aarne-Thompson type 426 ("The Two Girls, the Bear, and the Dwarf").[1]

This story is not related to the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Snow White" that provided the basis for the 1937 Walt Disney animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The modern German name of that heroine is Schneewittchen rather than Schneeweißchen. This story has little in common but the similar name of its fair-skinned girl. "Snow-White and Rose-Red" does feature encounters with one dwarf.

Plot[]

Snow-White and Rose-Red are two little girls living with their mother, a poor widow, in a small cottage by the woods. Fair-haired Snow-White is quiet and shy and prefers to spend her time indoors, doing housework and reading. Dark-haired Rose-Red is outspoken, lively and cheerful, and prefers to be outside. They are both very good girls who love each other and their mother dearly, and their mother is very fond of them as well.

One winter night, there is a knock at the door. Rose-Red opens the door to find a bear. At first, she is terrified, but the bear tells her not to be afraid. "I'm half frozen and I merely want to warm up a little at your place," he says. They let the bear in, and he lies down in front of the fire. Snow-White and Rose-Red beat the snow off the bear, and they quickly become quite friendly with him. They play with the bear and roll him around playfully. They let the bear spend the night in front of the fire. In the morning, he leaves trotting out into the woods. The bear comes back every night for the rest of that winter and the family grows used to him.

Illustration for Josephine Pollard's book Hours in Fairy Land, published in 1883

When summer comes, the bear tells them that he must go away for a while to guard his treasure from a wicked dwarf. During the summer, when the girls are walking through the forest, they find a dwarf whose beard is stuck in a tree. The girls rescue him by cutting his beard free, but the dwarf is ungrateful and yells at them for cutting his beautiful beard. The girls encounter the dwarf several times that summer, rescue him from some peril each time and the dwarf is ungrateful.

Then one day, they meet the dwarf once again. This time, he is terrified because the bear is about to kill him. The dwarf pleads with the bear and begs it to eat the girls. Instead, the bear pays no heed to his plea and kills the dwarf with one swipe of his paw. Instantly, the bear turns into a prince. The dwarf had previously put a spell on the prince by stealing his precious stones and turning him into a bear. The curse is broken with the death of the dwarf. Snow-White marries the prince and Rose-Red marries the prince's brother.

Other versions[]

  • "Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot" by the Brothers Grimm (German language)
  • "Snow-White and Rose-Red"; May Sellar, transl., Andrew Lang, ed., The Blue Fairy Book, 1889
  • Snow-White and Rose-Red and the Big Black Bear, by Clifton Johnson (1913)[4]
  • "Rose White and Rose Red", storybook and cassette in Fabbri's Once Upon a Time series (audio)
  • "Snow-White and Rose-Red"; Margaret Hunt, transl., Grimm's Household Tales, Vol. 2, No. 161
  • "Snow-White and Rose-Red" by Edith Wyatt – short story
  • Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede, in the Fairy Tale Series created by Terri Windling – 1989 fantasy novel based on the tale and set in medieval England
  • Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan – 2008 fantasy novel based on the tale
  • Snow & Rose by Emily Winfield Martin, Random House, October 10, 2017

In popular culture[]

  • Snow-White and Rose-Red was featured in Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics under its "Grimm Masterpiece Theater" season with Snow-White voiced by Julie Maddalena, Rose-Red voiced by Rebecca Forstadt, their mother voiced by Arlene Banas, and the bear/prince voiced by Dave Mallow, all in the English dub.
  • The 2001 film Snow White: The Fairest of Them All (based on the "Snow White" fairytale) features the prince being turned into a bear by the Evil Queen, which was taken from this fairy tale.
  • Snow White and Rose Red are both characters in the comic book Fables, with Rose Red more vulnerable to death due to being less famous than her sister among "mundies" (non-Fable people); Snow's character in the comics is also the Snow White from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which explains her larger popularity.
  • An allusion to "Snow-White and Rose-Red" is made in the 7th installment of Dark Parables, "Ballad of Rapunzel": Here, the Snow Queen, Snow White, is a combination of both of Grimm Fairy Tales' Snow Whites ("Snow White and Rose Red" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfes") as well as Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen". She has a fraternal twin brother, Prince Rose Red (of a/the Mountain Kingdom up in the Bernese Alps, Switzerland). Snow White was the 5th and last wife of the Frog Prince (with whom she had a son, Prince Gwyn), and Rose Red is in love with and engaged to Princess Rapunzel of the Kingdom of Floralia, Sněžka, Czech Republic, in Central Europe. The twins Snow White and Rose Red have power over Ice and Fire, respectively.
  • Snow White and Red Riding Hood's friendship in the television series Once Upon a Time is meant to allude to Snow-White and Rose-Red.
  • The characters Rose Red and Pearl White in the musical Ghost Quartet are meant to be an allusion to Rose-Red and Snow-White. Pearl White was initially called Snow White, but the name was changed to avoid confusion.
  • In 1954, Lotte Reiniger made a short animated film of the tale using her silhouette technique.
  • In the American anime-style web series RWBY, the close friendship between the characters of Weiss Schnee (an alteration of German Schneeweisschen, "Snow White") and Ruby Rose reflects the relationship of Snow-White and Rose-Red in the fairy-tale, but they are primarily based on Little Red Riding Hood and the other Snow White. The twin antagonist characters Melanie and Miltia Malachite, whose designs are based on early concepts for Ruby and Weiss, are a reference to Snow-White and Rose-Red.
  • In 2019, the band Blackbriar released their single "Snow White and Rose Red" (featuring Ulli Perhonen). The song is based on the relationship between the two sisters but takes a different approach where the sisters are forced apart as children and find each other later as adults.
  • In a "Fractured Fairy Tales" segment on The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, the story is parodied as "Slow White and Nose Red".
  • On Faun's 2019 album Märchen & Mythen, there is a song called "Rosenrot".

Gallery[]

  • Snow-white and Rose-red, by Alexander Zick

  • Illustration by Alexander Zick

  • Illustration by Alexander Zick

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Ashliman, D. L. (2020). "Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales (Grimms' Fairy Tales)". University of Pittsburgh.
  2. ^ Jack Zipes, The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm, p. 772, ISBN 0-393-97636-X
  3. ^ Stith Thompson, The Folktale, p. 100, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977.
  4. ^ Johnson, Clifton. A book of fairy-tale bears; selections from favorite folk-lore stories. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1913. pp. 31–47.
  • Grimm, Jacob and William, edited and translated by Stanley Appelbaum, Selected Folktales/Ausgewählte Märchen : A Dual-Language Book Dover Publications Inc. Mineola, New York. ISBN 0-486-42474-X
  • Andrew Lang's "Blue Fairy Tale Book"

Further reading[]

  • Hameršak, M.. (2011). "A never ending story? Permutations of "snow white and rose red" narrative and its research across time and space". Narodna Umjetnost : Croatian Journal of Ethnology and Folklore. 48: 147–160.

External links[]

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