Snow White and Rose Red Story

Unlike other fairy tales, this is a tale about familial love, about the beautiful relationship that exists between family members.

It's a lovely reminder that siblings can be the best friends you can possibly have. Because love is so much more than romance. It is the source of all good in the world, and we should hold to and embrace it every day, just like Snow White and Rose Red.

In most fairy tales, siblings are likely to be rivals, and the parents prefer one child over the other. And it's because of that this story stands out from the rest.

Not only do they have a kind mother who believes in caring equally for her two daughters, but the sisters also love one another unconditionally.

Snow White and Rose Red Story

In a house near the forest, an elderly widow lives. She owns two rose plants. The one bears white roses, while the other bears red roses. The widow also has two daughters who look like the roses on her two plants. As a result, the girls' names are Snow-White and Rose-Red.

Image Showing Two Girls

A knock comes at the door on a snowy winter evening. Rose-Red goes to the door to greet the guest. A bear walks inside the house, to their surprise and all three were afraid.  The bear expresses himself. It tells them not to be afraid, and that all it wants to do is come inside because it's cold outside. The old widow feels sympathetic to the bear and lets it sit near the fire. Snow-White and Rose-Red clean the bear's back of snow. The girls quickly realise that the bear is not a threat to them. They start playing with it. That night, the old widow lets the bear lie in front of the fire. The bear leaves in the morning and returns to the snowy forest.

For the rest of the winter, the bear visits the house every evening. The bear's visits are welcomed by Snow-White and Rose-Red, who like playing with it. Before leaving one morning as winter comes to an end, the bear informs Snow-White that it will not be returning for the entire summer. It explains that it must keep its valuables safe from evil dwarfs. Dwarves are trapped beneath the frozen ground throughout the winter. They can emerge from the ground and create chaos in the summer. Some of the bear's fur gets trapped on the door as it exits. Snow-White sees gold in the area where the bear's fur was torn.

After some time, the old widow sends Snow-white and Rose-Red to collect firewood. They come across a dwarf. When the dwarf was chopping down a fallen tree into little firewood pieces, his long white beard got stuck in a cut he had made in the tree. Snow-White and Rose-Red try but fail to take the dwarf's beard from the tree. Snow-White eventually takes out her scissors and chops the dwarf's beard off. Instead of thanking the two girls for rescuing him, the dwarf becomes angry over the loss of his beard's end. He departs, carrying a sack of gold.

Snow-White and Rose-Red are sent to catch some fish for dinner a few days later. They run into the same dwarf once more. His beard has become tangled in a fishing line this time, and he is in danger of being dragged into the water by a giant fish with the end of the line in its mouth. Snow-White and Rose-Red are unable to remove it. More of the dwarf's beard must be taken off with scissors once more. The dwarf gets angered even more by the loss of his beard. He departs, carrying a sack of pearls.

Soon later, the old widow sends Snow-White and Rose-Red shopping in the nearby town. They notice an eagle trying to carry the dwarf away on the way. The two girls are able to free the dwarf from the grasp of the eagle. However, the dwarf's coat was severely torn in the process. The damage done to the dwarf's coat angers him. He yells violently at the girls before disappearing into a hole in the ground with a sack full of jewels.

The girls saw a dwarf again on their way back from town. He's dumped his sack's contents on the ground and is admiring the jewels. The jewels sparkle in the early evening sunlight, and Snow-White & Rose-Red can't help but admire them. When the dwarf notices the girls, he starts yelling at them. At that point, a bear comes from the woods and approaches the dwarf. The dwarf begs the bear to leave him alone. He gives the bear all his jewels. "Come take these bad girls, they are tender delicacies for you," he says, asking the bear why it wants to eat a small person like him. The bear ignores the dwarf's words and kills him with a single paw strike.

The two terrified girls run. They recognized the bear's voice as it called out to them. Instead of a bear, Snow-White and Rose-Red find a young man dressed in gold when they come. The young man introduces himself as a prince. The dwarf took his treasure and turned him into a bear by casting a spell on him. The spell has been lifted now that the dwarf has died.

The prince marries Snow-White. His brother marries Rose-Red. The mother of the girls moved in with them. She brings her two rose trees with her, which continue to bear lovely white and red flowers.

Lessons from The Story

The following are the main lessons from this fairy tale.

Good little girls will get married and live happily ever after as a reward for their good deeds. 

Greedy, rude, and evil men shall be put to death righteously and quickly. So don't let other people's rudeness compromise your goodness; they'll get theirs in the end. 

Also, don't judge a book by its cover; a wild bear may appear to be huge and terrifying, but if he is polite, he may have more to offer.

Conclusion

Snow White and Rose Red is a lesser-known Grimm fairy tale. While there is a Snow White in it, she is not the Disney Snow White. She is a young girl who recently lost her father and currently lives with her widowed mother and sister Rose Red. In the world of fairy tales, this is one of the rare stories with a healthy single parent family. The mother and her two daughters adore each other and work together without fail, despite the problems and hardships they face.