Grimms' Fairy Tales Snowdrop Summary

Summary

A queen pricks her finger while looking out at winter snow and wishes for a daughter as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony; Snowdrop is born and the first queen dies. The king remarries a beautiful but vain new queen who relies on a magic looking-glass to confirm her beauty. When the mirror names Snowdrop lovelier, the new queen’s envy drives her to order Snowdrop taken into the forest to be left for the wild beasts. A servant spares the child and she wanders until she finds a tidy cottage occupied by seven dwarfs who agree to shelter her on the condition that she keeps house for them.

The queen’s mirror informs her that Snowdrop still lives, and she makes three attempts to kill the girl in disguise: first by lacing Snowdrop’s bodice so tightly that she faints, then by giving her a poisoned comb, and finally with a poisoned apple whose bitten portion causes Snowdrop to fall into an apparent death. The dwarfs save her twice but cannot revive her after the apple; they place her in a glass coffin where she lies like a sleeping princess. A visiting prince obtains the coffin; a dislodged piece of apple falls from Snowdrop’s mouth and she revives. She marries the prince; the queen, discovering Snowdrop alive and now the new queen, dies of rage when the mirror declares the bride the fairest.

Key events

1. Queen wishes for a child 'as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony'; Snowdrop is born.
2. The new queen’s mirror names Snowdrop fairer; Snowdrop is abandoned in the forest but spared by a servant.
3. Snowdrop finds the seven dwarfs’ cottage; they shelter her if she keeps house for them.
4. The queen, disguised, makes three murderous attempts: lacing, poisoned comb, and a poisoned apple.
5. Snowdrop falls into apparent death from the apple and is placed in a glass coffin by the dwarfs.
6. A prince finds Snowdrop; a piece of apple dislodges, she revives, marries the prince, and the queen dies of rage.

Analysis

This tale structures itself as a sequence of escalating trials driven by the queen’s envy and the heroine’s passive endurance. Snowdrop’s defining physical attributes—white skin, red cheeks, black hair—mark her as an idealized, almost emblematic beauty; they also set up the mirror as the central instrument measuring worth. The queen’s mirror functions as an objective truth-teller that destabilizes court hierarchy: beauty, not birth or power, becomes the metric that commands action. The repeated disguises and three attempts on Snowdrop’s life follow a fairy-tale pattern of triadic escalation, each attempt more intimate and more lethal, which intensifies suspense and demonstrates the queen’s growing malice.

The seven dwarfs serve multiple roles: protectors, a domestic order Snowdrop integrates into, and a moral chorus whose labor contrasts with courtly vanity. Snowdrop herself is characterized by innocence and obedience rather than agency; she survives by endurance and the interventions of others (the servant, the dwarfs, the prince). Symbolically, the glass coffin literalizes the earlier ebony windowframe and the mirror—preserving beauty under observation—and the apple fuses temptation with fatal consequence. Narratively, the tale privileges cyclical repetition and visible signs (blood on snow, the mirror’s pronouncements, the apple) over interior psychology, creating a moral fable about envy, purity, and the social power of appearance.

Important quotes

“Would that my little daughter may be as white as that snow, as red as that blood, and as black as this ebony windowframe!”

NarratorThe queen’s wish at the window establishes Snowdrop’s defining physical features and begins the story.

“Tell me, glass, tell me true! Of all the ladies in the land, Who is fairest, tell me, who?”

The Evil QueenThe recurring mirror question triggers the queen’s jealousy and the plot’s central conflict.

“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.'”

NarratorAfter the poisoned apple succeeds, the queen finally hears the mirror declare her the fairest, showing the fatal consequence of her envy and the story’s resolution for her.

Characters in Snowdrop

• Snow White
• The Evil Queen
• The King
• The Seven Dwarfs
• Prince