About this ebook
As different as winter and summer, Snow White and Rose Red are as devoted to each other as sisters can be. One night, an unexpected visitor knocks at the door of their cottage, where they live cosily with their mother, and a half-frozen large black bear asks for a warm place to rest. Initially afraid of him, the girls soon befriend him and he becomes their playfellow throughout the winter nights.
When spring arrives, the bear heads off into the forest to guard his treasures from wicked dwarfs, who live underground and emerge from their caves when the earth has thawed and who have one ambition in mind—to steal. A short while after the bear’s departure, the girls encounter a dwarf in distress and stop to help him, but there is more to him than meets the eye…
Alongside this tale by the Brothers Grimm is The Ungrateful Dwarf, the 1818 folktale by Karoline Stahl, upon which Wilhelm Grimm drew inspiration for Snow White and Rose Red. Both tales are presented in this book, newly translated into English.
[Folklore Type: ATU-426 (The Two Girls, the Bear, and the Dwarf)]
About the author
Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859) Grimm are commonly known the world over as the Brothers Grimm (die Brüder Grimm). They were German academics and authors who specialised in collecting and publishing folklore during the 19th century. They popularised stories such as Rapunzel, Snow White (Sneewittchen), Hansel and Gretel (Hänsel und Grethel), and Rumpelstiltskin (Rumpelstilzchen). Their first collection of folk tales, “Children’s and Household Tales” (Kinder- und Hausmärchen), was published in 1812.
The rise of romanticism during the 19th century revived interest in traditional folk stories, which represented a pure form of national literature and culture to the brothers. With the goal of researching a scholarly treatise on folk tales, they established a methodology for collecting and recording folk stories that became the basis for folklore studies. Between 1812 and 1857, their collection was revised and republished many times, growing from 86 stories to more than 200.
The popularity of the Grimms’ collected folk tales has endured well, and the tales are available in more than 100 languages and have been adapted by many filmmakers.
Rachel Louise Lawrence is a British author who translates and adapts folk and fairy tales from original texts and puts them back into print, particularly the lesser-known British & Celtic variants.
Since writing her first story at the age of six, Rachel has never lost her love of writing and reading. A keen wildlife photographer and gardener, she is currently working on several writing projects.
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