Meantime the queen went home to her glass, and trembled with rage when
she received exactly the same answer as before; and she said,
"Snow-White shall die, if it costs me my life." So she went secretly
into a chamber, and prepared a poisoned apple: the outside looked very
rosy and tempting, but whosoever tasted it was sure to die. Then she
dressed herself up as a peasant's wife, and travelled over the hills to
the dwarfs' cottage, and knocked at the door; but Snow-White put her
head out of the window, and said, "I dare not let any one in, for the
dwarfs have told me not to." "Do as you please," said the old woman,
"but at any rate take this pretty apple; I will make you a present of
it." "No," said Snow-White, "I dare not take it." "You silly girl!"
answered the other, "what are you afraid of? do you think it is
poisoned? Come! do you eat one part, and I will eat the other." Now the
apple was so prepared that one side was good, though the other side was
poisoned. Then Snow-White was very much tempted to taste, for the apple
looked exceedingly nice; and when she saw the old woman eat, she could
refrain no longer. But she had scarcely put the piece into her mouth
when she fell down dead upon the ground. "This time nothing will save
thee," said the queen; and she went home to her glass, and at last it
said--"Thou, Queen, art the fairest of all the fair." And then her
envious heart was glad, and as happy as such a heart could be.
When evening came, and the dwarfs returned home, they found Snow-White
lying on the ground; no breath passed her lips, and they were afraid
that she was quite dead. They lifted her up, and combed her hair, and
washed her face with wine and water; but all was in vain. So they laid
her down upon a bier, and all seven watched and bewailed her three whole
days; and then they proposed to bury her; but her cheeks were still
rosy, and her face looked just as it did while she was alive; so they
said, "We will never bury her in the cold ground." And they made a
coffin of glass so that they might still look at her, and wrote her name
upon it in golden letters, and that she was a king's daughter. Then the
coffin was placed upon the hill, and one of the dwarfs always sat by it
and watched. And the birds of the air came, too, and bemoaned
Snow-White. First of all came an owl, and then a raven, but at last came
a dove.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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