Snow White and Rose Red Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  CHAPTER · ONE

  CHAPTER · TWO

  CHAPTER · THREE

  CHAPTER · FOUR

  CHAPTER · FIVE

  CHAPTER · SIX

  CHAPTER · SEVEN

  CHAPTER · EIGHT

  CHAPTER · NINE

  CHAPTER · TEN

  CHAPTER · ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER · THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER · FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER · FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER · SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER · SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER · EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER ·NINETEEN

  CHAPTER ·TWENTY

  CHAPTER · TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER · TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER · TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER · TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER · TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER · TWENTY-SIX

  AFTERWORD

  "BEAR,” SAID THE WIDOW, “ART THOU OF FAERIE?”

  Hugh hesitated, knowing that he could no longer truthfully make a claim, yet unsure if the Widow cared for such distinctions. He shook his head, then nodded and looked up at the Widow, hoping for understanding.

  The Widow stared in complete incomprehension. Blanche looked at her mother, then back to Hugh and said gently, “Wast thou once of Faerie, but art no more?”

  Gratefully, Hugh nodded. Blanche looked at her mother again, and the Widow nodded encouragingly. “Hast thou abandoned thy former home, then?” Blanche asked. Hugh shook his head in the negative. “Wast thou cast out?”

  Again, Hugh nodded. Blanche hesitated. “Was it thine own faults which brought this banishment upon thee?”

  Hugh shook his head emphatically. There was a moment’s silence. Then the Widow said, “Bear, is this thy true form?”

  Hugh shut his eyes, wishing that bears could weep as men did, and shook his head again.

  “Mother!” said Rosamund. “Meanest thou he is enchanted?”

  FIREBIRD WHERE FANTASY TAKES FLIGHT™

  FIREBIRD

  Published by the Penguin Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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  First published in the United States of America by Tor, a division of St. Martin’s Press, 1989

  Published by Firebird, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2009

  Copyright © Patricia C. Wrede, 1989

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15943-9

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume

  any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This book is for Terri and Val,

  because without them it would never have happened.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The author is deeply grateful for the patient assistance of Cordelia Sherman and Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet in vetting the Elizabethan English in this book. Any egregious errors or deliberate idiocities which remain were committed by the author, and should be dealt with as such.

  INTRODUCTION

  by Terri Windling

  Though now we think of fairy tales as stories intended for children only, this is a relatively modern idea. For thousands of years, fairy tales were enjoyed by listeners young and old alike, and the earliest printed versions of the tales were published for adult readers.

  In Europe, the earliest known fairy tale collections come from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy: Giovan Francesco Straparola’s The Delectable Nights and Giambattista Basile’s The Tale of Tales. These fairy tales were unabashedly sensuous, violent, and morally complex—so much so that Straparola had to defend his edition against charges of indecency from the Venetian Inquisition. In the tale of Sleeping Beauty, for instance, the princess is awakened not by a chaste kiss but by the birth of twins after the prince (who’s already married) has come and left again. In older versions of the Bluebeard narrative (such as the Italian story “Silvernose”), the heroine does not sit trembling while waiting for her brothers to rescue her; she outwits her captor, kills him, and restores the lives of her murdered predecessors. Cinderella doesn’t sit weeping in the cinders while talking blue-birds flutter around her; she is a clever, angry, feisty girl who seeks her own salvation—with the help of advice from her dead mother’s ghost, not the twinkle of fairy magic.

  The name “fairy tale” itself comes from conte de fée, a term coined for a literary genre in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, where popular writers such as Charles Perrault, Madame D‘Aulnoy, and Madame de Villenueve created and published fairy tales still known and enjoyed by readers today (though often in simplified forms): “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Bluebeard,” “The White Cat,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and numerous others.

  At the end of the eighteenth century, French fairy tales were widely published in German translations, becoming as popular with German readers as they’d long been in their own country. In the nineteenth century, German Romantic writers such as Ludwig Tieck and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe came under the fairy tale spell and sought to create new fairy tale literature in the German language. A group of writers and scholars known as the Heidelberg Circle was particularly keen on establishing a homegrown German fairy tale tradition. This group included a pair of young folklore enthusiasts, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

  The Brothers Grimm, of course, are now the two most famous men in the history of Western fairy tales, and their influence on fairy tale collecting and authorship around the world has been profound. It was during their university years that the brothers embarked on what was to become a lifelong labor: seeking out traditional German stories and collecting them into one volume that would stand as proof of the great folk culture unifying the German peoples. “Folklore” was a new area of scholarship, and the brothers were among the discipline’s most energetic pioneers. They weren’t interested in the literary confections of French and Italian fairy tale writers; they wanted stories from the oral tradition, the older and more distinctively German the better. Contrary to public perception, however, many of the stories eventually published in their famous collection of German folktales did not come straight from the mouths of German peasants. The Grimms gathered their tales largely from their circle of literate, middle-class friends—who had, in turn, first heard the stories from nursemaids and governesses, some of whom were French and who told tales clearly drawn from French and Italian literary sources. The Grimms then edited (and even rewrote) the stories prior to publication, toning them down and inserting clear morals reflecting their own Protestant values. So these too
, in a sense, are literary fairy tales—rooted in the oral tradition but shaped by the pens of the Brothers Grimm.

  The fairy tale “Snow White and Rose Red” provides an interesting example, for it doesn’t seem to exist in the German oral tradition prior to its appearance in the Brothers Grimm collection. As far as scholars can tell, Wilhelm Grimm adapted the tale from a story called “The Ungrateful Dwarf” by Caroline Stahl, published in 1818. Both Stahl’s story and Wilhelm Grimm’s adaptation use elements from the “Animal Bridegroom” tradition (folk stories in which girls marry bears, snakes, and other beasts) but diverge markedly from the usual range of “Animal Bridegroom” plots. Thus the fairy tale, as we know it, is actually a literary creation by Grimm (borrowing heavily from Stahl) and not a folktale passed through the centuries from storyteller to storyteller.

  Does this mean it’s not a “proper” fairy tale? Well, that’s not an easy question to answer, for all of the tales we know and love today tend to contain a blend of oral and literary influences, in varying proportions. Some of our most beloved tales started life as literary publications (“Beauty and the Beast,” for example) and turned into oral stories later. Fairy tales have a way of passing in and out of the oral tradition, marked by many hands. Whatever the origins of “Snow White and Rose Red,” what’s certain is that it’s now part of the fairy tale canon, told and retold by storytellers all around the world.

  In the pages that follow, Patricia C. Wrede joins that long line of storytellers as she spins a tale of love and bears in Elizabethan England. Here, the two sisters of the fairy tale live in a woodland at the edge of Faerie, where their neighbor is the infamous Dr. Dee, real-life astrologer to Queen Elizabeth. Wrede stays faithful to the old Grimms’ story (and the older “Animal Bridegroom” tradition), while at the same time subverting the fairy tale in subtle and surprising ways. If, like me, you’re a fan of Wrede’s work, then you know what to expect from this premise: a witty and enchanting novel that perfectly evokes the Elizabethan period while making the magical additions to it seem as plausible as water or air. (If, on the other hand, this is your first Wrede book, oh, you have a treat in store!)

  The novel was first published back in the 1980s, when Pat and I were ... well, let’s just say a bit younger than we are today. I’d always been crazy about fairy tales, and so I had the notion of publishing a series of novels based on these classic stories. Thus the Fairy Tales series was born, featuring books by wonderful writers such as Charles de Lint, Pamela Dean, Steve Brust, Jane Yolen, and others. When I approached Pat about contributing to the series, I’d already worked with her on other books (I’m proud to be able to say I published her very first novel), and so I was already a big fan of her work. I was thrilled when she said yes, and when she chose the “Snow White and Rose Red” story for retelling. I knew she’d create something very special with it ... and indeed she did.

  It’s an honor to introduce this magical novel one more time, once upon a time....

  Terri Windling

  Editor, the Fairy Tale series

  October 2008

  CHAPTER · ONE

  “Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a tiny cottage near a lonely forest. In front of the cottage were two rosebushes, one white and the other red. The widow had two girls who were like the two rosebushes; one was called Snow White and the other Rose Red. ”

  THE WIDOW ARDEN AND HER TWO DAUGHTERS LIVED in a one-room cottage just outside the village of Mortlak, less than a mile from the river Thames. The walls of the cottage were wattle and plaster, with two small cloth-covered windows to let in the light, and the floor was of rough-hewn planks. In a fit of prosperity, the previous owner had built a hearth and chimney into the west wall, which reduced the risk of setting the thatched roof afire and added greatly to the winter comfort of the inhabitants.

  The cottage lay hard by the forest, separated from Mortlak by fields and commons, and the villagers were content to have it so. For the Widow Arden was considered, at best, eccentric; some spoke openly of madness. A few of the townsfolk hinted at still darker things and professed themselves grateful that the parish church stood between their comfortable homes and the Widow’s tiny dwelling.

  These latter rumors were given little credence by most of the villagers. Perhaps this was because the Widow Arden’s piety seemed too great to allow the possibility of witchcraft. Did she not bring her family to service every Sunday, morning and evening, without fail? Her dress was always modest and neat, if much mended. Her daughters knew their catechism with a thoroughness that was the envy of every youth and maiden the minister called on to recite during the instruction. If she eked out the pittance her late husband had left her by selling herbs and simples to her neighbors, who could blame her? She was not the only woman to do as much.

  Those who bothered to concern themselves with such things felt that the real root of the unpleasant rumors was simply envy. The Widow Arden was a comely woman and not even the most censorious could call her daughters anything but lovely. Rosamund, the younger of the two girls, had inherited her mother’s rich, chestnut-colored hair and brown eyes. The elder sister, Blanche, had grey eyes and her hair was a much lighter brown. Both had perfect complexions, arched brows, and white, even teeth; both had slender figures and moved gracefully. It was not surprising that relatives of less fortunate girls murmured. The wonder was that talk was not more common.

  The persistence of the rumors was due in part to the Widow’s supposed dislike of marriage. Had the Widow merely shown no inclination to remarry the villagers might have accepted it, but she had also rejected several flattering offers for her daughters’ hands. The younger girl was now rising sixteen and neither she nor her sister was so much as betrothed, which many felt went beyond the bounds of reason. There was also the uncomfortable fact that the Widow and her daughters could read and write, and not only honest English, but Latin as well. Such learning was appropriate for the Queen (God save her), but in lesser women it smacked of presumption. It was certainly not something any of the villagers wished to encourage in their own families.

  “Your daughters shall ne‘er he wed, an you continue in this froward fashion,” Mistress Townsend told the Widow one clear fall afternoon.

  “There’s time and plenty to fret,” the Widow Arden replied peaceably.

  “You should think on it!” Mistress Townsend said. Mistress Townsend was a stout, grey-haired woman, widely known for her piety and good works. It irked her that the Widow Arden seemed unconscious of any need for charity, though she was all but penniless. She had therefore formed the custom of calling at the Widow’s cottage, in a subtle attempt to bring her to acknowledge the difficulties of her situation and so provide an opening for Mistress Townsend’s beneficence. Since the Widow politely declined to accept her services, Mistress Townsend had resorted to proffering advice. So far, the change in approach had not been notable for its success.

  “Why is that, Mistress Townsend?” the Widow asked in a tone of mild curiosity as she carefully measured a length of thread.

  “Because you’ve cause and more to be uneasy. Look you, ‘tis no simple thing to find a husband for a dowerless girl, be she never so comely, and I fear your daughters have greater defects than lack of dower. I hope you’ll not take my plain-speaking amiss.”

  The Widow looked up from her mending. “Pray, say on.”

  “Blanche and Rosamund are overlearned for most men’s taste,” her companion said, pursing her lips as if the very words were distasteful. “Nor is Rosamund so mild-spoken as she belike should be. ”

  “And is that the sum of your complaint?”

  “That and their lack of dowry must concern you first and most chiefly, yes,” Mistress Townsend said judiciously. “But were they my daughters, I’d fear as well their heedless wanderings in the woods. ‘Tis danger enough to live near the forest’s edge, but you let your children walk there as if they were armed and weaponed as the Queen’s guard! I tell you, harm will come to them one
day; that, or ...”

  “Or what?” said the Widow.

  Mistress Townsend lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper. “Or there’ll be those who speak of witchcraft, and not softly.”

  “I see.” With meticulous care, the Widow folded the foresmock she had been mending. She set it aside and turned a level gaze on Mistress Townsend. “And what would you have me do?” she asked in a gentle tone.

  “Why—why stop them,” Mistress Townsend replied, momentarily disconcerted by the Widow’s steady regard. “Keep them at home, if you’ll not see them wed as yet, or find them places in some gentle household, where they may earn their own way. I know of several London merchants who would—”

  “I’d strangle my daughters with my own hands before I’d send them to that vice-ridden plague pit!” the Widow interrupted. “You’ve said enough, Mistress Townsend, and more than enough. Blanche and Rosamund go into the forest because I send them, to gather the herbs I need. They know the forest well; if I’ve no fear for their safety, you need have none either. As for their learning, if it keeps them from bad husbands I’ll thank Heaven and wish them twenty times as wise! Now I must go to tend my bees, and so I give you good day, Mistress.”

  Mistress Townsend found herself ushered gently but firmly to the door. So stunned was she by this unaccustomed turn of events that she did not think to resist until she was outside the cottage. Muttering balefully, she lifted her skirts and began the walk back to Mortlak. The Widow Arden stood at one of the windows, peering through a hole in the cloth covering, and watched the other woman out of sight. Then she shook her head, and went out to tend her bees and wait for her daughters’ return.