Once upon a time… a kind and beautiful princess lived in a handsome castle in Germany. Her mother died when she was still a girl, and her father remarried shortly afterwards. But the stepmother, reportedly in possession of a magic mirror, was a vain and manipulative woman, favouring her own children over her adopted stepdaughter. Eventually the relationship snapped; the princess fled away from her family, over great hills and through deep forests. Eventually she settled and lived in exile in a community of dwarfs working in the local mines.
The princess (well, Baroness, technically…) was Maria Sophia Margaretha Catherina von Erthal. Quite a mouthful, isn’t it? But you have almost certainly already recognised her as “Schneewittchen” from the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale: or, in English…
Snow White.
