The story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was around long before Walt Disney discovered it. Unlike Disney's version, with perky singing and comedic dwarfs, many earlier versions contain twisted themes and disturbing imagery. In this article, the first in a series exploring the evolution and power of Snow White, Suite 101 provides a glimpse into the dark and shadowy side of one of the world's most beloved fairy tales with Giambattista Basile's The Young Slave.
An Italian Folk Tale is Recorded: Giambattista Basile's The Young Slave
While aspects of the Snow White story are found in some of the world's most ancient tales, the earliest known written version was published in Basile's Il Pentamerone in 1634. It is thought that The Young Slave greatly influenced subsequent retellings.
A Beautiful Girl is Born
The Young Slave begins with a Baron's unmarried sister, Lilla, swallowing a rose leaf and becoming pregnant. Aware bearing a child out of wedlock is not appropriate for a young woman of her social standing, she hides her pregnancy and secretly gives birth to the beautiful Lisa.
She then summons fairies to bless the child. One of whom is so excited that she trips, and instead of a blessing, utters a fateful curse. The curse culminates in Lisa's death at age seven while her doting mother lovingly combs her hair.
A Beautiful Child-Corpse Sleeps in an Infamous Casket
Lilla, wrought with grief, has Lisa's body entombed in seven caskets made of crystal and hides the corpse in a palace room under lock and key. Lisa grows and matures during her death-like sleep, her beauty quietly blossoming like the rose that sparked her creation.
Years later, as Lilla is dying of a broken heart, she passes the key to her brother, who promises to never open the locked door. More years pass, and the baron takes a wife. Hence, this story's villain is a lecherous aunt, rather than the evil stepmother most known today. When the baron is away, the wife uses the key to unlock the door and finds what she assumes is her husband's secret mistress.
Jealous Cruelty Abounds
In the tale's most disturbing scene, the aunt drags Lisa's corpse out by her hair, dislodging the comb and unknowingly breaking the curse. The confused and terrified Lisa awakes and calls out for her dead mother. Upon hearing Lisa's cries, the aunt bellows, "I'll give you a mother, and father too!" (New York: Dutton, 1932)
The baroness "straightaway cut off the girl's hair and thrashed her with the tresses, dressed her in rags, and every day heaped blows on her head and bruises on her face, blacking her eyes and making her mouth look as if she had eaten raw pigeons." When the baron returns home and asks after the battered girl cowering in the shadows, the baroness claims she is the new kitchen slave, one so disobedient as to only be meant "for the rope's end."
A Tortured Child is Rescued and Finds her Prince
Time passes, and the baron leaves for a fair. When he asks Lisa what gifts she would like brought back from the fair, she casts a spell making it impossible for him to return without the requested items: a doll, pumice stone and knife. Sitting by the hearth with the baron's gifts, Lisa laments her tale to the doll while sharpening the knife on the pumice stone so she can kill herself. Overhearing the tale, the kindhearted baron learns that the abused child is the daughter of his beloved sister.
The baron sends his niece away for several months to recover from the dark horrors inflicted upon her. After Lisa returns more radiant than ever, her social standing, physical beauty and health are all restored. She is, of course, rewarded with marriage to a prince of her choosing. The cruel aunt faces banishment and is forced to live with her parents.
In Giambattista Basile's The Young Slave, it is apparent how a tale that has become a favorite of children around the world stems from one not intended for children at all. Readers can also see the great distances traversed by complex fairy tale characters from their points of origin to the child-friendly images preserved in popular culture.
In exploring this and other versions of the Snow White story, adult readers can reclaim the tale, in all its raw brutality, for themselves. In doing so, Snow White redeems its place as one of the most hauntingly macabre tales of the fairy tale genre.
Sources:
- Basile, Giambattista. The Young Slave. Il Pentamerone. New York: Dutton, 1932. Accessed December 31, 2011.
- Davies, Gill. (Ed.) The Joy of Fairy Tales. Cambridge: Worth Press, 2011.
- Hallett, Martin & Karasek, Barbara. (Eds.) Folk and Fairy Tales. Ontario: Broadview Press, 1991.
- Windling, Terri. Snow, Glass, Apples: The Story of Snow White. Endicott Studio. Accessed December 21, 2011.
Lara Smith - is a freelance writer with a Bachelor of Arts in English, History and Religious Studies.
