This story comes, of course, from Walt Disney.
Well, all right, the story of Snow White is really older than that, but Walt's version is surely the one nearly everyone thinks of first. It was the first full-length animated film, and in some ways I don't think it's been bettered. Yes, Snow White herself is ludicrously doll-like, but I've never seen fabric ripple so beautifully anywhere.
No, really, it's worth watching the whole film just for that.
It's a great story, anyway. Innocent heroine, wicked step-mother, mirror, dwarfs, apple, prince...but you know it already.
There might even have been a real Snow White. There was once a beautiful girl called Margarete von Waldeck who lived in, um, Waldeck, where the children who worked in the mine were known as dwarfs.
Margarete (who didn't get on at all well with her step-mother) was courted by noblemen but was poisoned at the age of twenty one - though certainly not her step-mother who was already dead.
Mirror, Mirror, on the wall
Who's the fairest of them all?
Brilliant, eh? Proof to every child that one day the weak SHALL PREVAIL!
Word To Use Today: mirror. This word is from the Old French word mirer, to look at, from the Latin mīrārī, to wonder at.
I like this origin of the story. How interesting...I've retold Snow White in a novel and never knew about M of W!
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