Snow White Elizabeth

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not so far away, a young girl named Elizabeth sat at her window, dreamily looking out upon the winter-y scene before her as she worked on her needle-point.

It was her first night as the new queen, and she trembled at the thought of lying next to the king in his bed, having never been to bed with a man. The previous queen had been there only a week before, but she’d expired while giving birth to the infant princess.

In her nervousness, Elizabeth pierced her finger with the needle. When she went to brush the drop of blood away, she noticed that the skin of her hand, already weathered by the years of work she’d done in the castle before winning the favor of the king, had become smooth and pale.

“How curious,” she sighed, staring back out the window. “The redness of my blood makes my skin as white as snow and could keep my hair as black as the leafless trees.”

She had no more time to ruminate over the change, as the king was summoning her to his chamber.

As the years passed, Elizabeth aged and watched the princess, named Blanche but called Snow White for her fair skin, grow into a beautiful young woman. Though she had no shortage of admirers, Elizabeth was never without worry over her beauty. As a wedding gift, her grandmother had given her an enchanted mirror that assured its owner of their beauty. Many a day she’d stand before it and ask,

“Enchanted glass placed before me,

Who’s the fairest girl to see?”

And the spirit of the glass would answer,

“O, my queen, as you demand,

You’re most beautiful in the land.”

Though Elizabeth knew the mirror couldn’t lie, she was worried by the age spots she’d see on her face and wondered about how she could remedy them, then thought back to that day long ago when she’d first gotten married. Blood had turned her skin flawless and young. But it’d been the blood of her virgin self.

Elizabeth pondered on this more one night while her maids were preparing her for a lavish ball that the king was throwing. The girl who was brushing her hair had a nervous condition and twitched suddenly, pulling Elizabeth’s hair. The queen howled in pain and slapped the girl violently. Her hand came away dripping with the girl’s blood, and like a feral animal, Elizabeth rubbed it on her face. Looking into her mirror again, she saw that her skin was now smooth and white. She grinned at the frightened girl, then called to another servant, a bald, stooped man named Giles who would do anything to win his lady’s favor.

“Giles, take this girl to the dungeon and drain her of all she’s worth.”

The man leered at the cringing girl, then grabbed her and dragged her, screaming, down the cellar. Elizabeth summoned another girl who finished her preparations, and then descended the staircase to where the grand ball was being held.

Never before had the court regarded her with such awe. The lords and ladies stared, smiled, gasped as she surveyed them coolly from the king’s side.

During the festivities, she made an announcement that any family wishing their young daughter to have proper training and polishing could send her to the castle, where Elizabeth would guide them in the ways of court etiquette, provided they be young and “innocent.” The king said nothing against it and many women flocked to her saying they’d be glad to send their girls to Elizabeth. She made an additional announcement saying that the invitation was extended to the children of farmers and peasants as well as nobles, and some women balked at that, but over the next few weeks there were hundreds of girls coming into the castle asking when they would be in Elizabeth’s care.

She was only able to take several on at a time, keeping them for a few days, dressing them in beautiful gowns, serving them fine food and telling them how life was in the castle, before she decided that her face was too creased with wrinkles and selecting one of them. She would question the girl, intimately, and if she found out that the girl wasn’t a virgin, the girl would be deemed “trained” and sent home. But those who admitting being virgins, of which there were many, were taken into the dungeon by Giles and a few others and sliced open, their blood drained into a claw-footed white porcelain tub where Elizabeth would bathe. Those girls were reported missing or kidnapped. People remarked on Elizabeth’s youthful and beautiful appearance when she tearfully delivered the news to the family of another girl who’d disappeared.

This continued for many months, until there were no girls left to send to Elizabeth. The townspeople were becoming suspicious of all the disappearances . Finally, her attention was turned towards the princess, who’d grown into a beautiful young woman. Elizabeth had always thought using Blanche would be too dangerous, but, seeing streaks of white in her raven hair, she was getting desperate. And, since she’d seen the prince of a neighboring kingdom at the castle often and knew he was intending to court the princess Elizabeth knew she wouldn’t be a virgin much longer. A lover of hers was a huntsman, so she paid him to take Blanche out into the woods and kill her, then drain her blood into a vial.

Before the huntsman left, Elizabeth summoned Blanche to her chamber and petted the girl, running her fingers through Blanche’s silky black hair and caressing her pale cheeks, sighing, “How I do love thee, my Snow White beauty.”

The huntsman took her deep into the woords but, seeing how innocent and beautiful the princess was as she walked among the flowers, couldn’t bear to do harm her. He warned the princess of the plot and told her to run as far away as she could, never coming back to the castle again. On the way back, he slaughtered a deer and brought that blood to the gracious queen.

Blanche ran and ran through the woods, for a day and a night, through a terrible storm, until she finally came to a little cottage. She thought it was abandoned, but when she entered it she found that it was impossibly cluttered, but with furniture and belongings that were so small that looked like they belonged the dwarves. She straightened up the little house and when the owners returned - seven of them - she explained her plight. Having heard about all the suspicion around the queen, they gladly let Blanche stay there, having her cook and clean while they mined in a nearby cave for jewels.

Upon the huntsman’s return, Elizabeth bathed happily in the blood, gleefully waiting for her loosening skin to become taught and young. But her joy quickly turned into horror as, before her eyes, her skin turned an ashy pallor and became withered and wrinkled.

“No!” she howled at her magic mirror, and the spirit summoned a picture of Blanche sitting happily at a dinner table with the seven little men.

Throwing a black cloak over her crone-like figure, Elizabeth set off for the cottage, with a basket of ripe red apples, which she knew Blanche loved. When she found the cottage, the seven men had gone to work, leaving Blanche all alone. The girl let Elizabeth in and gladly took one of the apples when offered it. As she bit into it, closing her eyes and relishing the sweetness, Elizabeth stabbed her. She shed her cloak and gladly bathed in the spraying blood, shouting with joy as she felt her body straighten and her skin become young.

But the huntsman had told the townspeople of the deed the queen asked him to do and in a rage, they rushed through the forest to find her. Upon hearing her shouts of joy, they broke into the cottage and carried the queen away.

Blanche was barely alive, but many physicians were able to attend to her and she was saved. The seven dwarves rejoiced at finding her alive and the prince asked for her hand in marriage, which she gladly accepted. The queen was charged with the murder of all the girls, yet no court could bear to punish her and mar the beauty that’d been restored by Blanche’s blood. The only sentence they say fit to carry out was to trap Elizabeth in a glass coffin until the end of her days, so that her beauty could be observed in death as it was in life.