White as Snow

Once upon a time fairy tales were told to audiences of young and old alike. It is only in the last century that such tales were deemed fit only for small children, stripped of much of their original complexity, sensuality, and power to frighten and delight.

To most people today, the name Snow White evokes visions of dwarfs whistling as they work, and a wide–eyed, fluttery princess singing, "Some day my prince will come." (A friend of mine claims this song is responsible for the problems of a whole generation of American women.) Yet the Snow White theme is one of the darkest and strangest to be found in the fairy tale canon — a chilling tale of murderous rivalry, adolescent sexual ripening, poisoned gifts, blood on snow, witchcraft, and ritual cannibalism. . .in short, not a tale originally intended for children's tender ears. Disney's well–known film version of the story, released in 1937, was ostensibly based on the German tale popularized by the Brothers Grimm. Originally titled "Snow–drop" and published in Kinder–und Hausmarchen in 1812, the Grimms' "Snow White" is a darker, chillier story than the musical Disney cartoon, yet it too had been cleaned up for publication, edited to emphasize the good Protestant values held by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. (...) Variants of Snow White were popular around the world long before the Grimms claimed it for Germany, but their version of the story (along with Walt Disney's) is the one that most people know today. Elements from the story can be traced back to the oldest oral tales of antiquity, but the earliest known written version was published in Italy in 1634.

There is no death, said the mirror, only changing.

She talks to demons." Yes, to one: herself.

Look in your mirror. See your beauty. See your witch’s eyes.

So Coira grew now, with two distinct sides. The silent, loveless, light side, where everything was clear and plain and harsh. And the shadow side, softer and secretive, kind in its own way, philosophical, and convinced of spirit.

Where were you and your God when he had me down in the snow-what return must I give you for that?

Mirrors taught: Perhaps there were always at least two sorts of reality, what you credited, and what was true.

What had happened, what had gone on? Was this idiot’s ugly story here some garbled version of fact?

His eyes were the eyes of the night and he bowed three times to his bride, promised him so long before in the wood.

She had been magnetic and unreachable as the moon. She had grown awful and phantasmal as a demoness.

There she was, walking on the hill’s ridge in a plain dress, her hair curled in a shining black braid round and round her skin. Such white skin, white as the snow had been, and lips as red as if bitten. But eyes silver-gray as clear water.

In the corner, the half-blind bronze mirror watched the witch-queen as she slept, motionless and noiseless on the black.

Coira, tread up on the world with silver feet, and bring back with you the snow-drops and the asphodel and the young green corn.

Coira felt she would soon fall into the mirror-pool, whirtl down for ever and be lost.

Drunk, he dreaded the witch-queen not at all.

You are where you find yourself. And your soul is a pebble.

To enter here was to return to herself, her childhood, girlhood.

Having pushed off her earlier girl-self, the queen was brand new, nearly innocent again.

Outside, in the corridors, and in the back of her skull, the crone heard the child she had met noiselessly crying, needles of her smashed heart raining from her eyes as she wandered about.

Years fell from her with the clatter of armor.

She saw her beauty as if for the only time in her life. Her eyes darkened.

The fierce cry penetrated the heart of Arpazia, which today had begun to know and crack in pieces.

The child was now too moved even to need to be brave.

There were two of her. She stood there, facing herself, both ways.

Now she must make the goddess see her at last. Plainly it had not happened as yet.

Always they were asking, mother and daughter, these abusive enigmatic questions about or of each other.

The child felt her mortal smallness, and thought she would not be heard. She had been frequently ignored.