Snow White and the Cottage in the Wood
A bedtime story to read aloud, about five minutes, told with the Story Path tiles: the wood, the cottage and the Crown.
Once upon a time, when snow was falling like feathers, a queen sat sewing by her window. She wished for a little girl with cheeks as red as roses and hair as dark as the ebony window frame, and before long her wish came true. They called the baby Snow White.
But the queen who came after her wore a cold, bright crown, and she had a mirror on her wall that could speak. Every morning she asked it, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” And every morning the mirror said, “You are, my queen.”
Until the day it didn't. “Snow White is fairer,” said the mirror. The queen's crown flashed, and her face went as hard as frost.
So a kind huntsman took Snow White by the hand and led her to the edge of the wood. “Run,” he whispered, “and don't come back to the castle.”
Snow White ran into the wood. The trees leaned close. The path wound this way and that. Somewhere an owl said hoo, and somewhere a twig went snap, and Snow White's heart went pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat.
She ran until her feet were sore, and just as the sky turned pink, she saw a light between the trees.
It was a cottage, the smallest cottage she had ever seen, with smoke curling from the chimney and a gate to shut behind her. Inside were seven little chairs, seven little bowls, and seven little beds all in a row.
Snow White ate a spoonful from each bowl, and she was so tired that she lay down across three of the little beds at once, and fell fast asleep.
At dusk, seven dwarfs came home from the hills, singing as they walked. “Someone has been eating from my bowl,” said the first. “Someone is sleeping in my bed,” said the second. And all seven tiptoed in to look.
When Snow White woke and told them her story, they said, “Stay with us. Keep the fire bright, and we will keep you safe. Only never open the door to a stranger.”
But the mirror told the queen where Snow White was hiding. So the queen dressed as an old woman, and walked through the wood with a basket of apples, the reddest you ever saw.
“Just one bite,” she said at the window. And Snow White, who was kind and a little bit hungry, took one bite, and fell into a sleep so deep that nobody could wake her.
The seven dwarfs kept watch beside her, day and night. One day a traveller came riding along the path, and as they lifted Snow White to carry her into the sunshine, the piece of apple fell from her lips.
Snow White opened her eyes. “Where am I?” she asked. “Home,” said the seven dwarfs, “and safe.”
As for the queen, the mirror never spoke to her again. And Snow White? She wore a crown of her own one day, a warm one, and she never once asked who was the fairest.
But every summer she walked back through the wood to the smallest cottage she had ever seen, and seven little chairs were waiting by the fire. The End.
The End
