Snow White

A queen, gazing from her window at the falling snow, wishes for a daughter with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony. A daughter is born, perfect in beauty, and the queen dies. The king takes a new wife—a woman beautiful but vain and cruel. This queen possesses a magic mirror that answers all questions. Each day she asks: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" And the mirror always answers: "You, my queen." But years pass. Snow White grows in beauty until one day the mirror reveals a terrible truth: "Snow White is fairer than you." Enraged with jealousy, the queen orders a huntsman to kill Snow White in the forest and bring back her heart. The huntsman, unable to commit such cruelty, kills a deer instead and returns with its heart, deceiving the queen. Snow White flees through the forest and discovers a cottage belonging to seven dwarves. They shelter her, asking only that she keep their home. Snow White lives happily, innocent and pure. But the queen's mirror reveals Snow White lives. The queen, disguising herself as an old woman, brings Snow White a poisoned apple. Snow White, trusting in the goodness of strangers, takes a single bite and falls into a death-like sleep. Years pass. A prince, traveling through the forest, discovers Snow White's preserved form and, moved by her perfect beauty and innocence, kisses her. The spell breaks. Snow White awakens. They marry and live justly, while the queen, consumed by vanity and malice, perishes in despair. True beauty, the tale teaches, lies in honesty and innocence, not in vanity. Snow White's honest heart made her beautiful in ways the queen, despite her fair face, could never achieve.