Snow White

Once upon a time in the middle of winter, when the flakes of snow were falling like feathers from the sky, a queen sat at a window sewing, and the frame of the window was made of black ebony. As she sewed she pricked her finger, and three drops of blood fell upon the snow. She thought to herself, 'If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the window frame.'

Soon afterward she had a little daughter who was as white as snow, as red as blood, and whose hair was as black as ebony. She was called Snow White. When the child was born, the queen died. The king took another wife, a beautiful woman but proud and arrogant, and she could not bear anyone else to be more beautiful than she. She had a magic mirror, and whenever she looked into it she asked, 'Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?'