Once upon a time in the middle of winter, when the flakes of snow were
falling like feathers from the sky, a queen sat at a window sewing, and
the frame of the window was made of black ebony. And whilst she was
sewing and looking out of the window at the snow, she pricked her finger
with the needle, and three drops of blood fell upon the snow. And the
red looked pretty upon the white snow, and she thought to herself,
"Would that I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as
black as the wood of the window-frame." Soon after that she had a little
daughter, who was as white as snow, and as red as blood, and her hair
was as black as ebony; and she was therefore called Little Snow White.
And when the child was born, the Queen died. A year later, the King
remarried a haughty and vain woman and that's when Snow White's troubles
began.