Starting with snow white

Popular Tales of the Germans 
(London: John Murray, 1791)” 
(54). This same translated edition has been utilized for this project, as well. 
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If we were speaking of another tale, the next in this lineage would be Perrault. However, because 
Perrault did not pen a 
Snow White
tale, the Grimms are recognized as the next (and indeed most) significant 
precursor. In 
Preserving the Spell
, Armando Maggi recognizes this commonly referenced fairy tale lineage 
moving from Basile to Perrault to the Grimms. 

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matches up to the Grimms’ version far more successfully than Basile’s. However, guided 
by what I would call a faulty sense of folkloric positioning (wherein a successor’s tale 
appears to influence its precursor), audiences might be inclined toward terming 
“Richilda” more “traditional” or “authentic” because it most closely represents what is 
thought to be a perfectly inclusive version of the tale, the Grimms’. In reality, Musäus’ 
version, as an earlier 
Snow White 
precursor, likely informed the Grimms’ work.
However, Jones’ model (a structure most effectively mapped onto the Grimms’ tale), as 
well as the greater population’s perception of “the classic” positions folkloric authority 
with the Grimms first. Therefore, one necessarily inspects this tale further in its 
connections to or departures from the Grimms’ version. 
Although “Richilda” offers the tale of that self-same, jealous Countess and begins 
with 
her 
origin, as opposed to that of the Snow White figure, Blanca, the story of 
Blanca’s origin (birthed by a “good” mother, is also contained therein). When Blanca 
comes of age, the Countess becomes aware of the burgeoning beauty by way of her 
inquiries (concerning the fairest) directed toward a mirror which offers images in 
response. Immediately jealousy and hatred mingle, pushing Richilda toward three 
murderous attempts, assisted by the concoctions of Sambul, the Court Physician. Each 
time, these prove unsuccessful, though thinking her dead, Blanca’s caretakers, the 
dwarves, place her inside a coffin with a “glass window in the top” (46). After the third 
instance, Blanca finally wakes to a young knight, Godfrey, who poses as a “Knight of the 
Tomb” and potential suitor in Richilda’s court, to trick the vain Countess and seek 
vengeance (61). He is successful; by way of a story concerning the “murderous jealousy 

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of an unnatural mother,” he entreats Richilda to prescribe her own punishment, “to open 
the bridal dance [(at the marriage she mistakenly believes will be her own)] […] in red 
hot iron shoes” (70). This punishment is executed at the wedding of the two young 
lovers, who at last “live as happy as Adam an Eve in paradise” (73). Despite the framing 
of the novelette, in its emphasis on the jealous Countess and the satiric tone throughout, a 
reader finds within nearly all of Jones’ episodes in their appropriate order (origin, 
jealousy, renewed jealousy, death, exhibition, resuscitation, and resolution). Only the 
third and fourth episodes, expulsion and adoption, occur out of their proper places.
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That said, in the remainder of the tale’s structure, as well as its preoccupation with 
jealousy, one finds a version which fulfills many of the necessary folkloric requirements 
and
very closely resembles the Grimms’. 
Beyond the tale’s nearly seamless formal folkloric classification then, “Richilda” 
serves as proof, of a kind, to the Grimms’ assertions that “Snow White was one of the 
best-known folktales at their time” (Kawan 332). It was a tale that clearly belonged to an 
oral (as well as literary) tradition, per Kawan’s findings of emergent versions in primarily 
in Germany and Russia (341). While the locale of the tales (prominent in both Germany 
and Russia) might be viewed as problematic here, the similarities between “Richilda” and 
the Grimms’ “Sneewittchen” display the intents to salvage what was conceived to be a 
disappearing art form, and to create a collection of “traditional oral tales before they 
disappeared in the face of increasing literacy” (