| "Snow, Glass, Apples" | |
|---|---|
| Short story byNeil Gaiman | |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Genre | Short story |
| Publication | |
| Publication date | 1994 |
"Snow, Glass, Apples" is a 1994short story by the English authorNeil Gaiman. It was originally released as a benefit book for theComic Book Legal Defense Fund and was reprinted in the anthologyLove in Vein II, edited byPoppy Z. Brite.[1]It is a retelling of theBrothers Grimm fairy taleSnow White, but from herstepmother's point of view.
The short story begins with amagical woman telling the reader that had she beenwise, she would have killed herself instead of meeting her husband andstepdaughter, who killed her own mother duringchildbirth.
Eight years prior, the narrator meets thewidowedking of theland after sixteen years ofdreaming of their first encounter. The king and the narrator fall in love, with him visiting her regularly until he takes her to hispalace andmarries her. The king has a six-year-oldwhite-skinned, black-haired, and red-lipped daughter thequeen becomesstepmother to. The queen, however, is scared of her husband's child, who never dines with them.
One night in winter, the queen is sewing in her chambers when theprincess enters asking for some food. The queen gives the princess anapple, observing her bite into the fruit with unusually sharp teeth. Briefly losing her fear, the queen caresses the princess's cheek with her right hand, only for the child to bite into her stepmother's thumb anddrink the blood. The queen is horrified by her stepdaughter's actions, and when the girl has finished, her stepmother's wound instantly heals andscars. Fearing for her life, the queen has theblacksmith forgeiron bars for her windows and nightly locks herself in her chambers.
As time passes, the king himself also falls prey to his own daughter. Every night, the princess bites her father and drinks his blood, leaving his entire body covered in scars similar to his wife's. The king eventually succumbs to his daughter's vampirism, leaving his widow torule the kingdom as queen. After her husband'sfuneral and her owncoronation, the queen has herhuntsmen take the princess to theforest and cut out herheart, which continues to beat even days after being removed. The queen ties her stepdaughter's heart withrowan berries andgarlic bulbs before hanging it in her private chambers and having the iron bars removed from her windows.
For six years, the queen's reign over her kingdom is mostly peaceful, with the people respecting her authority and looking forward to the annual spring fair. With each succeeding spring fair, however, a number oftravelers andmerchants disappear, depriving the people of their livelihood and driving them into poverty. To solve the mystery, the queen looks into hermirror and sees the culprit: the undead princess killing a pedophilic monk before feasting on his blood. To save the kingdom from her monstrous stepdaughter, the queen uses magic and her own blood to create three enchanted apples which she brings to the princess, who has been living in acave withdwarfs.
The queen flees but knows that the princess has eaten one of the apples when the girl's heart finally stops beating. Come the next spring fair, the people are able to trade in business again. Although the queen is displeased to see the dwarfs buying pieces ofglass, she does not respond due to her stepdaughter's heart being silent, thus ensuring the safety of the kingdom.
Two years after poisoning her stepdaughter, the queen is visited by aprince and she plans to marry him and unite their kingdoms. However, the queen is unable to sexually satisfy the prince, who is clearly a necrophiliac, and he leaves. On his way home, he encounters the princess's corpse encased in glass and being guarded by the dwarfs. Indulging his necrophilia, the prince rapes the princess and unwittingly dislodges the piece of apple stuck in her throat, resurrecting her.
Back in her chambers, the queen awakes to her scarred right thumb aching and to blood dripping from her stepdaughter's heart which has begun to beat again. The prince and the princess barge into the queen's chambers and have her arrested on the charge ofwitchcraft. The princess then reinserts her heart into her chest, and she and the prince announce their plans to marry and unite the kingdoms.
The prince and the princess have the queen imprisoned throughout the autumn, turning the people against her byvilifying her with lies that would morph into the famousfairy tale of Snow White.
Come midwinter, the prince and the princess have their wedding, the queen is incinerated in akiln, and the story is revealed to be her final thoughts as she begins to burn to death.
Snow, Glass, Apples was written in 1994, and was first published byDreamhaven Press as benefit book for theComic Book Legal Defense Fund.[2] It was included in Gaiman's short story collectionSmoke and Mirrors (1998).
The story was adapted by the author into anaudio drama, which was produced by Seeing Ear Theatre in 2001, starringBebe Neuwirth. This was the second of two collaborations between Gaiman and Seeing Ear Theatre, followingMurder Mysteries, and the two adaptations have been released together on CD under the titleTwo Plays for Voices. In 2012 it was adapted into a play by theEdinburgh University Theatre Company.[3]
In 2019 it was adapted byColleen Doran into a graphic novel published byDark Horse Comics.[4] The adaptation won the 2020Eisner Award forBest Adaptation from Another Medium.[5][6] The Horror Writers Association also presented the "Snow, Glass, Apples" graphic novel with theBram Stoker Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel Award.[7]
