“Looking-Glass, Looking-Glass, on the wall,
Who in this land is the fairest of all?”
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 little 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 was living, and still had her pretty red cheeks. They said, “We could not bury her in the dark ground,” and they had a transparent coffin of glass made, so that she might be seen from all sides. 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 to watch it. And birds came too, and wept for little Snow-White; first an owl, then a raven, and last a dove.
And now little Snow-White lay a long, long time in the coffin. 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 little 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.”