Little Snow Whitepage 7 / 8
And when she asked of the looking-glass at home,
“looking-glass, looking-glass, on the wall,
who in this land is the fairest of all?”
And it answered at last,
“oh, queen, in this land thou art fairest of all”.
Then her envious heart had rest, so far as an envious heart can have rest.
The dwarfs, when they came home in the evening, found Snow-White lying upon the ground, she breathed no longer and was dead. They lifted her up, looked to see whether they could find anything poisonous, unlaced her, combed her hair, washed her with water and wine, but it was all of no use, the poor child was dead, and remained dead. They laid her upon a bier, and all seven of them sat round it and wept for her, and wept three days long.
Then they were going to bury her, but she still looked as if she were living, and still had her pretty red cheeks. They said, “we cannot bury her in the dark ground”. They had a transparent coffin of glass made, so that she could be seen from all sides, and they laid her in it, and wrote her name upon it in golden letters, and that she was a king's daughter. Then they put the coffin out upon the mountain, and one of them always stayed by it and watched it. And birds came too, and wept for Snow-White, first an owl, then a raven, and last a dove.
And now Snow-White lay a long, long time in the coffin, and she did not change, but looked as if she were asleep, for she was as white as snow, as red as blood, and her hair was as black as ebony.
It happened, however, that a king's son came into the forest, and went to the dwarfs, house to spend the night. He saw the coffin on the mountain, and the beautiful Snow-White within it, and read what was written upon it in golden letters. Then he said to the dwarfs, “let me have the coffin, I will give you whatever you want
for it”. But the dwarfs answered, “we will not part with it for all the gold in the world”. Then he said, “let me have it as a gift, for I cannot live without seeing Snow-White. I will honor and prize her as my dearest possession”. As he spoke in this way the good dwarfs took pity upon him, and gave him the coffin.