“Lady Queen, thou art fairest here,
But Snowdrop up in the mountains near,
Who lives with the seven dwarfs, odd and queer,
A thousand times fairer doth appear.”
When she heard these words she actually trembled and shook with rage.
Then she went into a secret room, which no one but herself ever entered, and there she prepared a poisoned apple. Outwardly it looked very pretty, with such rosy cheeks that every one who saw it would long to eat it, but any one who ate a piece of it would be sure to die. When the apple was ready she stained her face and dressed herself as a peasant woman, and so she went over the hills to the home of the seven dwarfs. She knocked at the door as usual, but Snowdrop put her head out of the window and said, “I am not to let any one in; the seven dwarfs have forbidden me.”
“It is all the same to me,” answered the woman. “I shall soon get rid of my apples. There, I will give you one.” [[146]]
“No,” said Snowdrop, “I am not to take anything.”
“Are you afraid of poison?” said the woman. “See, I will cut the apple in two. You eat the red cheek and I will eat the white.”
The apple was so cunningly made that only the red side was poisoned. Snowdrop longed to eat the fine apple, and when she saw that the peasant woman was eating it herself, she could resist no longer, but stretched out her hand and took the poisoned half. But hardly had she touched the first bite to her lips before she fell down dead. Then the cruel Queen looked down on her with fiendish delight, and laughing aloud she cried, “As white as snow, as red as blood, as black as ebony; this time the dwarfs cannot wake you.”