There is another Brothers Grimm tale called Snow White and Rose Red which also includes a character called Snow White. However, this Snow White is a completely separate character from the one found in this tale. The original German names are also different: Schneewittchen and Schneeweißchen. There is actually no difference in the meaning (both mean "snow white"), but the first name is more influenced by the dialects of Low Saxon while the second one is the standard German version, implying a class difference between the two Snow Whites.
Another possibility is that the story of Snow White merged with the story of Elizabeth I of England and her rival and ultimately her victim Mary Stuart (Mary Queen of Scots). Her biographers described Mary as having skin of snow, blackest hair, and lips blood red. She was considered a beauty all her life. The story goes that Mary brought two venetian mirrors from France and wanting to give Elizabeth, her cousin, a gift, sent her one mirror and had her portrait placed into the other matching frame. The two were wrapped in straw and sent to Elizabeth. Elizabeth was much older than Mary Stuart and not as beautiful. In addition, Elizabeth had never had a real mirror, just rubbed metal plate. When she first saw herself in the Venetian mirror, she saw her age and her flaws clearly for the first time. Then she looked at the portrait of her beautiful cousin and her hatred was complete. She felt Mary was mocking her. Mary was young and would surely take the throne form her old maid cousin, eventually. The rumor is that you could hear Elizabeth screaming all the way to Westminster and that she threw her shoe and broke the costly mirror. She simultaneously hatched the scheme to imprison and kill Mary, and abduct her son to be raised as her heir.
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Famous quotes containing the words snow white, snow, white, rose and/or red:
“Meanwhile Snow White held court,
rolling her china-blue doll eyes open and shut
and sometimes referring to her mirror
as women do.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“But he sent her Good-by,
And said to be good,
And wear her red hood,
And look for skunk tracks
In the snow with an ax—
And do everything!”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Heaven has its business and earth has its business: those are two separate things. Heaven, that’s the angels’ pasture; they are happy; they don’t have to fret about food and drink. And you can be sure that they have black angels to do the heavy work like laundering the clouds or sweeping the rain and cleaning the sun after a storm, while the white angels sing like nightingales all day long or blow in those little trumpets like they show in the pictures we see in church.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“When you realize how hard it is to know the truth about yourself, you understand that even the most exhaustive and well-meaning autobiography, determined to tell the truth, represents, at best, a guess. There have been times in my life when I felt incredibly happy. Life was full. I seemed productive. Then I thought,”Am I really happy or am I merely masking a deep depression with frantic activity?” If I don’t know such basic things about myself, who does?”
—Phyllis Rose (b. 1942)
“With the old kindness, the old distinguished grace,
She lies, her lovely piteous head amid dull red hair
Propped upon pillows, rouge on the pallor of her face.
She would not have us sad because she is lying there,
And when she meets our gaze her eyes are laughter-lit,
Her speech a wicked tale that we may vie with her....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)