More commonly known as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the original tale dates back much farther than Disney’s animated movie. The Brothers Grimm tale first came into print in their 1812 publication. Earlier versions of the tale have the evil queen personally taking Snow White into the forest to pick flowers and abandoning her.
Later versions of Snow White leave out the part about the Evil Queen wanting to eat the child’s heart and liver, because cannibalism is gross and wrong (my thoughts anyway). But some think the cannibalism is in relation to Slavic tales where witches eat human hearts.
Italo Calvino wrote an Italian version in reponse to the Grimm Brothers titled Bella Venezia. This version keeps the antagonist as the mother, Bella Venezia. She is an innkeeper instead of a queen, and patrons are her magic mirrors. The daughter finds a magic cave inhabited by robbers rather than dwarves. A witch, instead of the mother, goes after the girl to end her life.
Myrsina is a Greek fairy tale where the girl is abandoned by her sisters (instead of her mother), is called the most beautiful by the sun (instead of a mirror), and lives with the Months (instead of dwarves). The sisters give her, first, a poison cake, and, second, a poison ring. Myrsina gives the cake to a dog, as she suspects her sisters ill intent, and the dog dies. The ring, she’s told, was a gift from their late mother. When she accepts her mother’s gift she dies. She’s put in a closed chest. When a prince comes along he asks for the chest and is given it, on the condition he never opens it. As the prince becomes ill, he opens the chest and sees Myrsina, takes off the ring, and she wakes up.
Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree is a Scottish variation of Snow White, Nourie Hadig is an Armenia tale, and La Petite Toute-Belle is a French variation.
Some scholars think Snow White could be based on a the Roman legend of Chione. Many scholars have thought that Snow White was inspired by a real life person, but they disagree on which person that is. Margaretha von Waldeck was a German countess was sent away by her stepmother and later mysteriously poisoned. Maria Sophia Margarethe Catharina was a Barvarian baroness who had a stepmother who greatly preferred her own children, and supposedly had a magic mirror that only told the truth.
The Narrator’s Favorite Variations:
Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine--Book Winter, by Marissa Meyer--Book Snow, by Tracy Lynn--Book Sydney White--Movie