The 1937 Disney movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a massive hit and broke box office
records upon its release. But, it was inspired by a seriously dark story, courtesy of the
Brothers Grimm. So if you want the grisly details, here are the messed up origins of
the classic Disney film.
In the Disney film, there's no explanation for where Snow White gets her name, other
than her being, well, white. But it turns out that the Brothers Grimm's original version
of the tale actually gives her name an origin story.
Originally, Snow White's mother is sewing in the castle as snow is falling outside.
She accidentally pricks herself with her needle and the drops of blood land on the fresh snow.
Apparently the window was open, which seems uncomfortable if it's cold enough to snow.
But on seeing the blood, her mother exclaims,
"If only I had a child as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and as black as the wood
in this frame."
That's a pretty creepy thing to say out of nowhere, but hey, fairy tale parents are weird.
This scene doesn't appear in the Disney version at all, but they do refer to it. The Magic
Mirror, when first describing Snow White, says,
"Lips red as the rose, hair black as ebony, ski white as snow."
As you might have noticed, they skip over the whole red as blood part, making it much
tamer with the whole flower analogy.
Disney's version completely leaves out any mention whatsoever of Snow White's biological
family. She has her evil stepmother, the Queen, sometimes known as Queen Grimhilde, and that's
it. If there's a queen, who's the king? And just who was Snow White's mother, since she
definitely has one in the fairy tale?
Well, in the Brothers Grimm story, Snow White's mom is the original queen, meaning Snow White
is a princess by birth. Unfortunately, the mom dies during childbirth, and the king remarries
a year later.
"This is true love. You think this happens every day?"
The king is mentioned exactly once in the Grimm's fairy tale, when he marries the evil
queen, but doesn't come up again. He isn't in the Disney version at all. Some versions
imply or even accuse the queen of having killed the king. Snow White and The Huntsman, with
Chris Hemsworth, is one such version.
While Disney's evil queen performs magic and even turns herself into an old crone, this
is just supposed to be your typical fairy tale evil magic. The only character who ever
refers to her as a witch is Grumpy. But, he literally calls all women witches in a line
just before that, so it seems that's Grumpy's issue. Let's just say they call him Grumpy
for a reason.
In the Grimm Brothers' story, however, the Queen is explicitly described as a witch who
practices witchcraft, which is how she creates the poison apple. Coming from a time and place
where the fear of witches was a pretty real thing, it makes sense the Brothers Grimm didn't
pull any punches.
In fact, unlike Disney's villain, the fairy tale queen doesn't need to turn herself into
a witch because, well, she already is one. Instead, she just wears ordinary disguises
when she approaches Snow White.
In the animated film, the Queen orders the Huntsman to take Snow White into the woods
and kill her. But before he can even begin his task, the Huntsman decides his conscience
won't allow him to kill an innocent princess. So, he lets her go, telling her to run away
into the woods. What a kind fellow!
In the Grimms' fairytale, things play out much the same. The Queen orders the Huntsman
to take Snow White into the woods and kill her. But that's where the similarities end.
In the fairy tale, the Huntsman draws his knife and holds it over Snow White's heart,
ready to kill her. But she sobs and begs him to spare her life. That's a whole lot darker!
The Huntsman does grant her mercy, but he only does it because she's so beautiful. As
she runs away, he thinks to himself that the wild animals of the forest will kill and eat
her soon. Not so kind now, is he?
The Grimms do say that he feels relief, like a stone falling off his heart, for not killing
her. Still, this version of the Huntsman is pretty cold-blooded compared to his animated
counterpart.
In Disney's film, the evil Queen asks the Huntsman for proof of Snow White's death.
"Bring back her heart in this."
Compared to later Disney movies, this is pretty gruesome.
But, the Huntsman slaughters a pig, and brings its heart to the Queen, which is enough to
fool her into believing Snow White is dead. That is, until the Magic Mirror tells her
otherwise. At least the movie is tame enough that it never actually shows what's in the
box.
But the fairy tale version is way grosser. It's not Snow White's heart that the Queen
demands, it's her lungs and liver. That's pretty stomach-turning and way more graphic
than the movie.
And yeah, the Huntsman does bring the Queen a pair of lungs and a liver, but these are
from a wild boar that he killed. Since he killed a pig in the movie, this part, at least,
does match up in both stories.
In both versions, the Huntsman gets away with his deception. Considering how powerful the
Queen is, that's pretty lucky. Well, not so lucky for the pig.
In this Disney version, the Queen asks for Snow White's heart, but it's only for proof
of Snow White's death. After the Magic Mirror calls it out as a fake, though, it never comes
up again.
However, the Grimm Brothers' Queen wants Snow White's lungs and liver for a far more disturbing
reason. She intends to cook them and eat them. Yes, really. The Queen wants to kill Snow
White, then cannibalize her remains, which is pretty monstrous, even for the Brothers
Grimm.
The Huntsman delivers the lungs and liver, and the Queen has the castle cook boil them
with salt. Then, she eats them. Yeah, the Queen eats an innocent girl's entrails just
because she was prettier than her. That is next-level messed up.
The Disney Queen makes two attempts on Snow White's life. She orders the Huntsman to kill
her, and when that fails, she tries to poison her. That's more than enough to make the Queen
a hardened criminal.
But the original fairy tale Queen is even more cold-blooded. She tries to kill Snow
White twice as many times as the Disney Queen. After the Queen discovers the lungs and liver
are fake, she dresses as a peddler and visits Snow White at the dwarfs' cottage, selling
bodices. Snow White agrees to try one on, at which point the Queen laces it up so tightly
that Snow White can't breathe. The Queen then flees, and the dwarfs rescue Snow White shortly
after by cutting the lacing.
For her second plan the Queen makes a poisoned comb, disguises herself and brings it to Snow
White. The Queen convinces Snow White to let her comb her hair, and the poisoned comb paralyzes
her. Fortunately, the dwarfs rescue her once again by removing the comb before it can kill
her. It's only at this point that the Queen decides to try the poison apple, also proving
that Snow White is a very slow learner.
The film version of the story has Snow White singing while doing chores, which the Prince
joins in on. The Prince moves on after the song, but later, after Snow White is put into
a magical sleep by the poison apple, the Prince comes across her coffin in the woods. He recognizes
her, gets all kissy, and breaks the curse. It's like a meet-cute that pays off at the
end of the movie and gives things some closure.
The Brothers Grimm's version doesn't have Snow White and the Prince interacting before
he comes across the dwarfs' house. When he does, though, the dwarfs tell him Snow White's
story. What's more, it's not even all that soon after the Queen's poisoning.
The fairy tale says that it's a, quote, "long, long time" before the Prince stumbles across
her. Even weirder is that the Prince, seeing the undecayed corpse of this stranger for
the first time, somehow convinces the dwarfs to let him take her. Apparently, he can't
live without looking upon her beauty. That's a creepy thing to request.
The dwarfs agree, for whatever reason, and the Prince has his servants pick up the coffin
and carry it behind him. Weirdo.
In the typical romantic style that would soon come to define Disney's animated films, the
cinematic Snow White can only be awakened by true love's kiss. The Queen assumes the
dwarfs will bury her alive, ensuring no one will ever kiss her. However, the dwarfs leave
her in an above-ground glass coffin, where the Prince finds her and kisses her.
True love's kiss doesn't factor into Grimm's Fairy Tales at all. The Queen never mentions
a cure for the poisoned apple, so it seems that as far as the Queen is concerned, nothing
can break the spell. However, one of the Prince's servants, tasked with carrying the coffin,
trips and drops it, which dislodges a chunk of the poisoned apple that was stuck in Snow
White's throat. She reawakens, meets the Prince, and agrees to marry a creepy guy she just
met.
Stranger still is the first edition of the story that the Grimms published. This early
version features a much different curse-breaking. One of the Prince's servants actually hits
the unconscious Snow White because he's so angry about being forced to carry her coffin.
This causes Snow White to spit out the chunk of poisoned apple.
After the Disney Queen poisons Snow white with the apple she's spotted by the seven
dwarfs. They give chase, eventually leading up a mountainside, where the Queen tries to
push a boulder on the dwarfs. But as though nature itself is tired of her nonsense, lightning
strikes the edge of a precipice, sending the Queen down a sheer drop, with the boulder
and two vultures following after. Thus begins the long tradition of violent, yet bloodess,
Disney villain deaths.
So how much of that is in the fairy tale? Well, uh, none of it. The Queen runs away
after feeding Snow White the poisoned apple, and that's it. But then, she gets an invitation
to the Prince's wedding. She only goes because the Magic Mirror tells her the Prince's new
bride is now the fairest in the land.
Still not able to handle being the second fairest, the Queen reluctantly shows up, and
that's when she discovers that the Prince's bride is none other than Snow White. Then
things take an extremely dark turn. The Prince sees the Queen, and realizing who she is,
orders his guards to arrest her. Then, he has a pair of iron shoes heated until they're
red hot, puts them on the Queen with tongs, and finally makes her dance until she's dead.
Maybe it's better we didn't get that ending in the film.
In Walt Disney's version of the story, Snow White looks to be a young adult, perhaps on
the cusp of becoming a queen herself. As a royal, the Queen's reign can only last so
long, and eventually she'll become old and begin to lose power. If she gets rid of Snow
White, however, she can preserve the illusion that she'll always be young and beautiful.
"Immortality."
The fairy tale is different in a major way. It explicitly says that Snow White is a mere
seven years old. Let that sink in. The Queen is jealous of the beauty of a seven-year-old.
The Huntsman nearly kills a child. The seven dwarfs are trying to protect a kid from her
evil stepmother who wants to eat her.
But then you get to the Prince. The story says she doesn't decay in the coffin, so that
kind of implies she doesn't age, either. He basically wants to wander off with a seven-year-old's
corpse. Yuck. And then when she wakes up, he marries her!
After the Brothers Grimm recorded and published all the fairy tales they could, they didn't
just rest on their laurels. They actually edited and revised the stories several times,
publishing multiple editions throughout their lives. The stories have a reputation for being
violent and way too intense for kids. But, the brothers actually did perform one bit
of self-censorship after the first edition.
In both the Disney film and the fairy tale, the Queen is always Snow White's stepmother.
But in the 1812 first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, the Queen was actually Snow White's
biological mother. It wasn't until the 1819 edition that the Grimms added the part about
her mother dying in childbirth and the king remarrying. This is something they're believed
to have changed to make the story less frightening for children.
This puts the entire story in a different light. Snow White's mother wishes for a beautiful
child, gets her, and then hates her for her beauty. Then she tries to have her seven-year-old
child killed, openly desires to cannibalize her, and finally tries to kill her when the
Huntsman fails. It makes things way darker. According to The Guardian, the Grimms eventually
changed it because they held motherhood sacred. Well, at least the Grimms had that going for
them.
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