“Lady queen, so grand and tall,
Here, you are fairest of them all;
But over the hills, with the seven dwarfs old,
Lives Snowdrop, fairer a thousandfold.”
When she heard the mirror speak thus she quivered with rage. “Snowdrop shall die,” she cried, “if it costs my own life!”
Then she went to a secret and lonely chamber, where no one ever disturbed her, and compounded an apple of deadly poison. Ripe and rosy cheeked, it was so beautiful to look upon that all who saw it longed for it; but it brought death to any who should eat it. When the apple was ready she painted her face, disguised herself as a peasant-woman, and journeyed over the seven hills to where the seven dwarfs dwelt. At the sound of the knock Snowdrop put her head out of the window, and said, “I cannot open the door to anybody, for the seven dwarfs have forbidden me to do so.”
“Very well,” replied the peasant-woman; “I only want to be rid of my apples. Here, I will give you one of them!”
“No,” said Snowdrop, “I dare not take it.”
“Art thou afraid of being poisoned?” asked the old woman. “Look here; I will cut the apple in two, and you shall eat the rosy side, and I the white.”
Now the fruit was so cunningly made that only the rosy side was poisoned. Snowdrop longed for the pretty apple; and when she saw the peasant-woman eating it she could resist no longer, but stretched out her hand and took the poisoned half. She had scarcely tasted it when she fell lifeless to the ground.
The queen, laughing loudly, watched her with a barbarous look, and cried: “Oh, thou who art white as snow, red as blood, and black as ebony, the seven dwarfs cannot awaken thee this time!”
And when she asked the mirror at home,
“Little glass upon the wall,
Who is fairest among us all?”