Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot

Snow-White and Rose-Red

A poor widow lives in a cottage with a garden where two rose trees grow, one white and one red, and her two daughters are like them: quiet Snow-White and lively Rose-Red. They love each other dearly and share everything; the animals of the forest trust them, and once, after a night in the woods, they wake beside a cliff edge and see a child in shining white, an angel watching over them. In winter they sit by the fire while their mother reads, with a lamb and a white dove beside them. One snowy evening a bear knocks; he only wants to warm himself, and soon the girls brush the snow from his fur and romp with him. He comes every evening all winter. In spring he must go to guard his treasures from wicked dwarfs, and as he squeezes out of the door his skin tears and Snow-White thinks she sees gold shining through. In the forest the girls find a dwarf whose long white beard is caught in a split tree; Snow-White cuts it free, and he grumbles and drags off a sack of gold. Later his beard is tangled in a fishing line and a fish pulls him towards the water; they cut the beard again, and he scolds them and carries off a sack of pearls. On the way to town an eagle seizes him and the girls pull him free; he complains about his torn coat and slips away with a sack of jewels. In the evening they surprise him with his jewels spread out on the heath; the bear comes, the dwarf begs and offers the girls instead, and the bear strikes him dead with one blow. Then the bearskin falls away and the bear is a king's son dressed in gold, freed from the dwarf's spell. Snow-White marries him and Rose-Red his brother; they share the dwarf's treasures, and the old mother lives with them for many years, with the two rose trees outside her window.

Retold from Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, Band 2, 7. Auflage (Ausgabe letzter Hand, 1857), KHM 161 by Brüder Grimm (public domain).