The Origins of Snow White 

In Greek mythology Chione ('Snow') is so fair Hermes puts her to sleep to lie with her and that same night Apollo disguises himself as an old woman for the same purpose. As a result she gives birth to twins: one who grows up to be a notorious thief like Hermes while the other becomes a handsome musician like Apollo. Later Chione boasts that she is fairer than Artemis and is slain by the jealous goddess for her pride.

As a French person, I was shocked by what the Disney studio made of the story of the hunchback of Notre-Dame. They could have created an unrelated story rather than abuse a French classic novel by Victor Hugo (Notre Dame de Paris is its original title) in such a ridiculous fashion. I have since boycotted anything from the Disney studio, but your comments about how they mistreat traditional tales resonate with me (what about the Little Mermaid of Hans C Andersen! Beauty and the Beast of Barbot de Villeneuve etc). They have a recipe for commercial success and plagiarise any well known and liked stories to fill their purse, unable to produce something original.

Also, theres the story of Demeter looking for her daughter who is stuck in the underworld being held by Hades.

Looking into the origins of Eurpoean folktales and fairytales is so interesting! And the interconnectedness is immense, so it can be difficult to find one single origin myth or story. The splinter in the finger in the Scottish tale is also found in an early version of 'Sleeping Beauty' called 'Sun, Moon and Talia'. Talia gets part of some flax lodged under her nail, which puts her to sleep until it's removed. That one is really dark compared to the modern version, including Disney's version, as she gives birth during her sleep. Symbolically it's really interesting, though! Thank you for an interesting video! ❤

Great video. Honouring and respecting our European cultural heritage is important. Thanks for this.

The ending of the tale, with Snow White's mother's punishment, reminds one of The Red Shoes story.

I don't know how this channel found me, but I'm so glad ☺️

The Gold Tree/Silver Tree version sounds more like Sleeping Beauty to me. A pricked finger, a death like sleep, etc. But I guess Snow White & Sleeping Beauty are so similar that they most likely share origins. I had always assumed the evil stepmother trope in Fairy Tales had to do with all the grief & family strife caused by primogeniture. Since women often died in childbirth, it wasn't unusual for men to marry more than once especially if they were wealthy.

I’m writing a screenplay for Snow White, and I can’t get into the plot too much, but I hope if this gets picked up (even if it has to be an indie-funded venture), those of you who follow this channel will be able to realize some of the cues. I’ve always felt there was some deeper, proto-Germanic and PIE echoes, and I hope my plot and premise does it justice. Fingers crossed I can get it across the finish line.

Snow White and the Huntsman is an underrated film adaptation

Fortress of Lugh. This is a very good video. Thank you for making it.❤ You should make a video about the origins of Little Red Riding Hood, it would be a great follow-up. I personally would love to see it. I love Germanic religion/mythology, folklore and fairy-tales you should make a series on Grimm's fairy-tales.

I liked the Neil Gaiman short story take on Snow White as a vampire, with the stepmother as the hero. In it, Snow has killed her mother, and ultimately her father. But only the stepmother knew what Snow really was. Would definitely make sense with the ultra white skin and blood red lips, the deathlike sleep, etc.

Excellent work, thanks for putting this together.

The breadth of your research is impressive. Thanks, Ronn

One can also interpret Snow White story through Gnostic Philosophy i.e. Snow White symbolises the immortal innocent Soul ( "Die Seele " in German which is a feminine word ) , the evil Step Mother represents soulless matter ( "Die Materie" a feminine word ) , the seven Dwarves represent crude natural elements .

Thank you for another fascinating video. Happy New Year!

The theme of an earth goddess with a beautiful daughter who goes or is taken into the underworld sounds a bit like Demeter and Persephone, doesn't it?

Snow white is the moon. The sun the prince. The seven dwarves the seven planets.

Anything said against the new Snow White has been deemed racist so I will tread lightly here. I would much like to see Disney make a version of the tale based entirely on the Grimm’s writings, incorporating the Nordic/Germanic myths you discussed. The original movie played fast and loose with these elements. Stories based on the myths of one culture should stand on their own as just that. Stories from one culture.

Snow White was one of my favorite fairytales as a child, and yet oddly i had little curiosity about its origins (and to this day I've still never watched the Disney movie!). Your entrancing video contains such rich food for thought I'll have to rewatch it and stop every minute to take notes! 😍

This is my first contact with your videos, and I am quite impressed. I enjoyed the depth of your presentation. One element that makes it almost impossible to create a complete line is that all of these stories come out of oral traditions. Each telling of the story injects new details. What we see today is a spot on the trail of the myth. The brothers Grimm were among the first to capture the stories in written and printed state. I appreciate your presentation of trans European elements in this story. Thank you.

I loved the beautiful art, and your final summation of Snow White. Thank you for the video.

Fascinating! Thank you! I enjoyed this so much!

Can’t wait for the black panther remake with Matt Damon

Maria Sophia von Erthal, who is widely believed to be the inspiration for Snow White in the Grimm Brothers fairytale.

Very interesting and thought provoking

Hey, I was just looking for something to watch. Good timing on the upload!

the early versions, not the Disney version, were my favourite, mum had to read the Ladybird book version every night, i remember her coughing the apple up as they carry her coffin, there is another legend 'the Juniper tree' that is similar with a boy in it who is white as snow and black as ebony.

Thanks!

It would be wonderful to see a movie of the Snow White tale incorporating some of these ancient magical elements. Thank you so much. This was lovely.❤

7:07 when he mentioned the seven mountains I couldn’t help but think of the seven hills of Rome

I really appreciate the respect you showed for the original stories. Please make more of these videos. 🎉

There are some striking awesome similarities on the start of Snow White and another rather furtherly gruesome oldest tale by the Grimm: The Junniper Tree, just that there the main-one involved is a young boy instead of a girl, but still there is a very evil stepmother which gets her proper doom at the end and a rebirth miracle happens too.

All the Disney remakes are insults tbh.

Thank you for this video

Outstanding history and storytelling such as Fortress of Lugh are wonderful reference points for each of us who are of Germanic, Celtic or other European stock and remind us of our deep history and indeed our continuing greatness.

I find the talking fish in that one version of the tale is neat

Disney remaking Snow White as brown is very insulting.....but mainly because if this was done in reverse, if a story of dark complected girl was appropriated white....we are all well aware of who would be throwing a damn hissy fit. If not for that, nobody would give a damn .

I assume from this that all of Grimms stories have a very ancient origin.

Disney is dead time has stopped nothing can be recognized anymore there is nothing new just broken materialism.

Greetings to you Kevin. I'm really enjoying the direction of the your current work. ✌️🌹😊

This situation in varying degrees of savagery occur in all of our cultures and ethnicities. Humans regardless of ethnicity are hardwired to resent the offspring of their partners ex. This is a cycle to be recognized and consciously broken, rather than fought over who claims it like a national treasure. None of you were outcast and abused and ostracized by a step parent?

Its probly distorted how Aria ran away when she fought joffrey and was was mad at the hound cause she was only playing with her friend that started those events.

Thanks for the video and for the story of Goldtree, I had never heard of it. I also liked the angle that the story may have roots in the image of changing seasons

The version of snow white we read as dutch children stil had the blood in the snow and the part where she wants a daughter with skin as white as snow and it's so important to the story I don't know why they didn't think skin tone would matter. Even if you are determined to race swap her at least use an asian beauty, who have all those characteristrics.

Thanks great video

Amazing great presentation. Makes me think cs lewis must have known much about mythology considering the narnia tale is about the light and warmth banishing the long winter

Sneewitta was a real life person as were and still are the dwarves of the ore mountains south of the seven peak range.

So basically Snow White is the Germanic version of the Greek goddess of the seasons Persephone, daughter of Demeter and Zeus. When she eats a pomegranate, she finds she must marry Hades, and spend half the year in the Underworld with him, creating winter. When she returns to this world for the other half of the year, we have spring and summer.

As a student of Old English it makes me happy to hear someone pronounce the "thorn" letter correctly instead of as "d"

I prefer the old tales to the movies. When I was a small kid, my Mom would often read these tales from the Grimm Brothers book, especially when I had a flu. So being sick as a kid was not so bad though.

*"from there grew the cycle of the seed and the sickle and the dance of the seasons, and the birds in their flight"* musical, Hades Town

Could the dwarfs or dwarves be earlier actual hominins?

As you first mentioned the blood on the snow, I wondered if you would connect the Deirdre story.

Loved this video and all the images it presented!

Snow White belongs to Nordic fairy tale tellers. Sorry. Zegler is miscast. I’m still waiting for Grimm fairy tales to be told faithfully to their source.

When Julius Caesar was still a young man, Sulla became a dictator of Rome. He called Caesar before him, and was at first impressed by him. But he said one day this young man might grow to be a threat. When he felt that day had come, he ordered Pompei to hunt Caesar down and bring back his heart as a trophy to prove he had been killed. Pompei found Caesar, but in the moment felt he could not kill him after all, and instead brought Sulla the heart of a boar. Caesar fled across the sea to Bithynia, where he stayed in the king's palace, becoming his lover. He was later mocked with the accusation he was the bottom in that relationship, which is actually likely. So it is interesting that Germanic people would come to tell a story of a princess whose mother or stepmother felt she was a threat and tried to have her killed by having her organs removed and brought to her. And that she would then flee to another court or across the sea. The Celts and the Germanic tribes both had not only contact with Rome but with Caesar himself. They would not need to have heard this story to come up with the story of Snow White, since it does have elements of ancient acrhetypes, magic, and mythology. But it is still interesting to think about.

Terrific and delightful! Thank you very much for the research

My uncle was a dwarf and he was a wrestler. He saved a girl, too, once, but they put him in jail for doing it wrong, I guess.

I always thought snow white was about the devouring mother archetype, but this seasonal explanation makes alot of sense too

Interesting to cover many different evolutions and corruptions of the story as it moved around in place and time but drawing the line at one specific one 🤔

I would argue that the prince reviving Snow White with a kiss in later versions is a Christian influence. A ruler who revives the dead with his love sounds a lot like Jesus. What do you think?

The idea of a mother who gave birth wanting their own offspring dead seems beyond callous which is why they usually depict the queen as the evil stepmother instead not that stepmothers are necessary evil but is a degree of separation that makes the story more convincing and palatable as well.

Curiosity got the better of me so I scanned your channel and the videos you have listed, after doing so I saved this video for easy access to what I presume will be many more interesting watches.

I read years ago that Snow White hearkens back to human sacrifice practiced by Germanic tribes to either bring the harvest or the spring.

Thanks for this interesting dive into the Snow White mythology. I was surprised tho, to see no mention of obvious parallels with Demeter-Persephone myth: in which also the Daughter disappears into the Underworld, then seasonally re-emerges, bringing back fruitfulness to the world. Except in that version, it's the man-suitor-would-be-husband who abducts & imprisons the Daughter; & her Mother who mourns her & won't rest until she's rescued / liberated.

If anything it's most likely a mystery school myth especially if it ties into the underworld.. innana went through 7 gates to escape the underworld, Orpheus has the lyre with it's 7 strings, you'll find the numbers 12 and 7 in every mystery school myths as it will always refer to the 7 planets and the zodiac and more importantly what they represent in you

This was awesome. Do other fairy tales OR AESOPS FABLES. I Loved those

The connection you imply with Persephone and Demeter is fascinating. Demeter isn’t portrayed as jealous or murderous as such, but as psychologically unable to let go of her daughter and permit her to have her own being, which is not so different. You imply, I think, that this relates to the fullness of the harvest season being unwilling to yield its glory to the next generation/year. The seeds (/daughters) go into the ground (/underworld) in the autumn to eacape the domineering mother, lie dormant there in a mystical half-alive state for half a year, then emerge fresh and green in the Spring as the new year takes over from the old one. I hadn’t made this connection before, about the mother being the old year passing away unwillingly as her beauty fades. Definitely feels like a gut-level observation by ancestral story-tellers about the tension and violence inherent to reproduction, the love for offspring as intertwined in some ghastly way with the raging against one’s own death that new life necessitates, drawing parallels between the human experience of this and the same patterns seen elsewhere in nature, looking for ways to find peace and order among these conflicting elements. Thank you for your work. Always stimulating.

Very well put together. Intetesting research on the Germanic/Gaelic origins.

Thank you so much for this level of scholarship on this topic; I found it most enlightening and just what I had been hoping to find. A little contribution I might make, as an archaeologist, is to contrast the desire of early folklorists…you refer to this as seen in the Grimm Brothers…to somehow work their way back to some pure “un corrupted “ source that attached itself to the idea of some pure un corrupted “strain” of people with archaeology complicating that search considerably. Maritime trade between Britain and Ireland is attested by well excavated stratified finds,of Irish stone tools in Scotland with pretty Clearly Neolithic dates attached….so 3000 BC…? All fascinating. Thanks thanks so much.

Interesting thoughts. Perhaps once a princess, sent through a mountain pass, only to be found frozen in an ice block, with no one knowing how to bring here back alive. I would add Merlin, Ice caverns and ice coffins rather than crystal caves, glass coffins with stasis, to your 7 dwarves & their mountains. You can add to that Cinderellas glass slippers to go with your burning shoes. Especially with dwarves in the original context of elves manifesting from the underworld and perhaps with the west as the abode of the dead with an ice queen to rule over it. The recovery of the perfectly preserved Otzi springs to mind. As does Tolkien in a more modern sense. I assume he also did lots of background research for his own work. Lady of the Lake, Galdriel, a women of grace held above all, that appears to play a central role, but a mystery with little detail.

Island across the sea.. maybe Avalon? Or something like it.

I think it comes from the same tradition as the necromantic stories when a woman is raised from the dead. Odin does this for eg.

It would be interesting to compare the tales of Snow White and theSleeping Beauty

I love learning about the origins of stories. It's more fun than watching the movies. I don't care how Disney makes their movies. I just am a fan of Disney. I enjoy different takes on things. Disney isn't the only company that remakes movies. They're just movies. People will complain about anything, though. My husband doesn't like any Disney movies except one. He says that the only good movie is Emperor's New Groove. 😂 He enjoys his war movies more than anything else but he doesn't understand people's complaints about remakes either.

An old dog, I know for a certaìntly that 'Snow White' originated via Walt Disney, opened hope and possibility that a woman was good company. Many are but many more ain't so . . . that's why Pinnichio is necessary for a youngmans complete education.

VERY WELL SAID! The "NEW" Snow White SUCKED. I'm Black and I was TOTALLY UPSET with how they DESTROYED the True Meaning of SNOW WHITE. GREAT VIDEO 👍🏽

Will there be more videos on the dark origins of fairy tales.

So . . . many of the commenters here are saying that . . . it is not only Liberals who appropriate other's cultures while they accuse everyone else of doing the same?

Dwarves merging with stone made me picture Dwarves becoming giant golems to defend their homes.

The more he talked about it the more it sounded like a reimagining of the story of Persephone where Hades is the good guy and Demeter is evil

I’ve always found the story of Snow White and Sigur and Gunther and Brune, Hilda fascinating, especially when I the book written by Edith Hamilton, concerning her collection mythological fails tails

The salt mines in the Alps have been used for many thousands of years. Miners would stay and work in the caves for days at a time. I wonder if that contributed to the myth of dwarves.

Very good video Kevin, thank you for all the knowledge you provide us. Look around guys, seems like more and more of us are awakening! There is a storm coming, and when the storm is getting close the trees start to dance!

I am so thrown off, now that I am aware that the dwarves in the Disney film are dressed like Finno-Baltic Pagan priests.

I live near Athelstan's Wood, which belongs to the Duchy of Cornwall to this day, but was pledged to the Duke of Medina Sidonia if the Spanish Armada had resulted in the conquest of England. The name was born by an English king and also a Bishop of Hereford - and there was also a Bishop Cantilupe. That's an English name with Norman roots meaning "Wolf's song" (toponym from a place so remote and wild that wolves were heard there). BTW, IIRC Beowulf wasn't English, he was a Geat from what is now northern Germany.

Outstanding! Many thanks.

That was very interesting and the idea that the original story was depicting seasonal change seems very plausible to me. I don’t expect anyone will read my thoughts but that doesn’t stop me thinking them. Ancient peoples (and still many today) explained nature in inexplicable ways that were even more fantastic and less likely than the truth but it was their only way to understand what was happening. Religious people of today, without the ability to think critically about things or who have had their senses dulled by brain washing, still resort to the highly unlikely if not impossible, instead of acknowledging the normal nature of things. I think the biggest stumbling block for so many is the time-line of things from the big bang until now. It is mentally painful to try and comprehend billions of years, even millions. So people like to reduce the timeline to a few thousand yrs which then makes naturally occurring events like evolution and geological changes, seem impossible on their own. So gods and the like, have to be invented to explain the unexplainable like creation, weather, seasons, night and day, good and bad happenings.

Thank God Disney never touched any Irish mythology.

The Grimm tales were orally preserved in Old German and other cultures for centuries. They only wrote them down.

I have had it up to ***here*** with Disney. I love folklore, bedtime stories, mythology, and all, but much prefer the clarity of the ancient tales without the muddle of thieves

I grew up with 'Sneeuwitje' as a child in Amsterdam back in the 1940's Cool to learn the metaphors and icon passing through the ages

Has anyone heard of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty? It is said that her father remarried because he thinks his daughter should have a mother. Sleeping Beauty's father was of royal blood. But the stepmother (in married queen). Was a sorceress who treated her stepdaughter badly. On her 16th birthday, she was supposed to stick herself on a rock that spins wool into yarn. and sleep for 100 years. A prince came and kissed her and she woke up. They married and lived happily.

e U rO pE eaN It’s German.

I love the crossover of Celtic and Germanic mythology. There must be a common Indo-European link and some numerological connexion with the number seven. There is certainly a Christian reference to sin regarding the offering of a poisoned apple, the word 'mela' meaning apple in Italian is etymologically derived from Latin 'malus' meaning 'evil'. So many ties to ancient European mythology, the tale of Snow White has got it all.

Most people aren't aware that the none Disney adaption story film about SnowWhite that was released in 1955 directed by Erich Kobler are closer as a respectful version of a live adaptation despite of their limitations when comes to technologies in films back in 50:es era in comparison to Disney's so called Remake that has nothing to do with the original version source material that Walt Disney himself used in the animated version with his own vision of the original story..

The glass coffin and the apple that is spat out to revive Snow white is clearly Catholic christian in origin. The remains of saints are displayed in glass coffins and the apple spat out is the reversal of the apple bitten by Eve in the Garden of Eden. All the rest seem to be pagan European though.

I understand this story to be about reincarnation/rebirth, like many of the European folk tales. Check out The book by Marie Cachet, "The Secret Of The She-Bear."

Thanks