It’s a long time since we have given you a Brothers Grimm story. We had somehow overlooked this charming tale. The “Snow White” of the title is not related to the more famous Snow White who met the Seven Dwarfs. This Snow White is the sister of Rose Red. The two girls live in the forrest and get on well with the animals who live there, including a big playful bear. They also meet a rather bad-tempered dwarf.

Read by Natasha. Text based on the version by Andrew Lang. Classic illustration by Jennie Harbour.

poor widow once lived in a little cottage with a garden in front of it, in which grew two rose trees, one bearing white roses and the other red. She had two children, who were just like the two rose trees; one was called Snow-white and the other Rose-red, and they were the sweetest and best children in the world: always hard-working, always cheerful. But Snow-white was quieter and more gentle than Rose-red. Rose-red loved [bad word] about the fields and meadows, and to pick flowers and catch butterflies; but Snow-white sat at home with her mother and helped her in the household, or read aloud to her when there was no work to do.

The two children loved each other so dearly that they always walked about hand in hand, and when Snow-white said, “We will never desert each other,” Rose-red answered: “No, not as long as we live”; and the mother added: “Whatever one gets she shall share with the other.” They often roamed about in the woods gathering berries and no beast threatened to hurt them. In fact, animals loved and [bad word] the two girls. The little hare would eat a cabbage leaf from their hands, the deer grazed beside them, the stag would bound past them merrily, and the birds remained on the branches and sang to them with all their might.

No evil ever befell them; if they stayed late in the wood and night overtook them, they lay down together on the moss and slept till morning, and their mother knew they were quite safe, and never felt anxious about them. Once, when they had slept all night in the wood and had been wakened by the morning sun, they saw a beautiful child in a shining white robe sitting close to their resting-place. The figure got up, looked at them kindly, but said nothing, and vanished into the wood. And when they looked round about them they realised that they had slept quite close to a deep crater in the ground. If they had gone a few steps further in the darkness, they would have fallen into it. When they told their mother of their adventure, she said what they had seen must have been the angel that guards good children.

Snow-white and Rose-red kept their mother’s cottage so beautifully clean and neat that it was a pleasure to go into it. In summer Rose-red looked after the house, and every morning before her mother awoke she placed a bunch of flowers before the bed, from each tree a rose. In winter Snow-white lit the fire and put on the kettle, which was made of brass, but so beautifully polished that it shone like gold. In the evening when the snowflakes fell their mother said: “Snow-white, go and close the shutters,” and they drew round the fire, while the mother put on her spectacles and read aloud from a big book and the two girls listened and sat and span. Beside them on the ground lay a little lamb, and behind them perched a little white dove with its head tucked under its wings.

One evening as they sat cosily together someone knocked at the door as though he wanted [bad word] in. The mother said: “Rose-red, open the door quickly; it must be some traveler seeking shelter.” Rose-red hastened to unbar the door, and thought she saw a poor man standing in the darkness outside; but it was no such thing, only a bear, who poked his thick black head through the door. Rose-red screamed aloud and sprang back in terror, the lamb began to bleat, the dove flapped its wings, and Snow-white ran and hid behind her mother’s bed. But the bear began to speak, and said: “Don’t be afraid: I won’t hurt you. I am half frozen, and only wish to warm myself a little.”

“My poor