Snow-White and Rose-Red

Author: Andrew Lang

Time Period: 1701 CE–1850 CE; 1851 CE–1900 CE

Country or Culture: Germany

Genre: Fairy Tale

PLOT SUMMARY

Andrew Lang’s “Snow-White and Rose-Red” begins with a poor widow and her two devoted daughters, Snow-white and Rose-red, named for the two rose trees growing in the widow’s garden. Snow-white is quiet and enjoys helping her mother at home, whereas Rose-red loves to run and play in the fields. The girls live harmoniously with their mother and with the beasts of the wood and often sleep outside safely. One morning, they wake up outdoors and see a child dressed in white robes near where they had lain. The child soon vanishes, after which the girls realize they had slept close to a precipice and might well have fallen over it the previous night. Their mother tells them that the child in the shining robe was a guardian angel.

One winter evening at home, the family hears a knock at the door. Rose-red opens it to discover a black bear. The girls flee in terror, but the bear assures them that he is safe and that he only wishes to come in from the cold. The mother treats him kindly, inviting him to warm himself by the fire, and she reassures her daughters that the bear is safe. The daughters gradually become comfortable and begin to play with the bear, pulling his fur and rolling about. The beast spends the night on the hearth and departs in the morning. He eventually becomes their regular evening guest.

Spring arrives, and the bear announces that he must leave to protect his treasure from dwarfs that live underground during winter but will soon emerge to steal it. As he departs, he catches a piece of his fur in the door knocker, and Snow-white thinks that she catches a glimpse gold underneath it.

One day, the girls happen upon a dwarf jumping up and down trying to free his beard, which has become stuck in a cleft of wood under a fallen tree. When the girls accost the creature, he verbally abuses them, but they help him anyway, eventually cutting off his beard to release him. The dwarf upbraids the girls for cutting his beard and scurries off with a bag of gold. The daughters encounter the dwarf twice more: the first time, his beard is stuck once again, this time in a fishing line. The girls help him by again cutting the beard, and again the dwarf insults them as he runs off with a bag of pearls. The second time, the dwarf is nearly carried off by an eagle, but the girls hold onto him so that the bird simply flies away. This time, dwarf reacts by screaming at the girls for tearing his coat. Snow-white and Rose-red go on their way, but as they return from their errands in town, they see the dwarf emptying his bag of pearls. As usual, the dwarf screams at the girls until the black bear suddenly appears and kills him. The bear then catches up with the girls, who had fled in fear, and he suddenly changes into a prince dressed all in gold. He reveals that he is a king’s son who had been enchanted to live as a bear as long as the dwarf was alive. Snow-white then marries the prince, and Rose-red marries his brother. The brides divide the dwarf’s treasure, and their mother lives happily with them and preserves her two beloved rose trees.

SIGNIFICANCE

This version of the tale comes from the Blue Fairy Book, published in 1889 by the Scottish writer Andrew Lang. Lang worked in numerous genres but became best known for his series of twelve “fairy books,” whose titles each include the name of a different color. The first in the series, the Blue Fairy Book was quite successful and enabled Lang to produce the subsequent volumes. The books include tales from different cultures and time periods. Overall, the series was produced by and represents the Western European cultural fascination with folklore and traditional tales during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The story of Snow-white and Rose-red falls into a familiar category of fairy tales: the coming-of-age tale involving a test by an enchanted prince who initially appears as a bear or some other beast. The most famous story of this tale type is “Beauty and the Beast,” but there are many other versions, such as the Norwegian tale “East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon,” which is remarkably similar to the story of Snow-white and Rose-red. In both stories, the prince appears as a bear who arrives at the house of the girls to initiate the test. In “Snow-white and Rose-red,” the test entails displaying courage and kindness; the girls succeed as they are willing to befriend the bear and to help the dwarf repeatedly despite his ingratitude. The daughters thus embody the perfection symbolized by the rose.

Still, there are other forces at work: the guardian angel figure suggests an element of supernatural protection, and the bear himself finally kills the dwarf and frees himself from the enchantment. These forces raise the question of the meaning of the daughters’ kindness to the dwarf given that destroying him signifies the prince’s liberation. Notably, in earlier versions of the tale, the girls simply discover the dwarf’s treasure and bring it back to their families. The elements of the magical bear and the marriage are later additions that shift the focus of the tale.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. Household Tales. Trans. Margaret Hunt. London: Bell, 1884. Print.

Heiner, Heidi Anne. “The Annotated Snow White and Rose Red.” SurLaLuneFairyTales.org. SurLaLune Fairy Tales, 28 Nov. 2008. Web. 12 July 2013.

Lang, Andrew. The Blue Fairy Book. Philadelphia: McKay, 1921. Print.

Rudman, Masha. “Review of Snow-White and Rose-Red and Other Andrew Lang Tales.” Reading Teacher 27.8 (1974): 849. Print.

Zipes, Jack. The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm. New York: Norton, 2001. Print.