The Girl in the Glass Coffin Trivia Quiz

Answer: False

They may have the same name in English, but the Snow White who met the seven dwarves in the forest was called 'Schneewittchen' or 'Sneewittchen' in the original German, while Rose Red's sister was called 'Schneeweißchen'. Also, the latter Snow White has blonde hair, as opposed to 'hair as black as ebony'.

Snow White and Rose Red are sisters who meet a friendly bear, who comes to live with them and their mother over the winter. In summer, he leaves as he has to guard his treasure from an evil dwarf. The girls later meet a dwarf with his beard stuck in a tree and they cut him free, but he complains that they ruined his beard. Each time they subsequently help him, he still complains. Later, they encounter the dwarf and the bear, and the dwarf tries to get the bear to eat the girls, but the bear kills him and turns into a prince. It turns out that the dwarf had turned the prince into a bear. Snow White marries the prince, and Rose Red marries his brother.

Answer: A little white dog that tears Snow White's throat out

The poisoned apple is the most famous method of offing Snow White, and in some versions - such as the Disney movie - the only version, but others have the queen disguising herself as various pedlars and coming to the dwarves' house to offer her goods.

The first time, she is selling laces and offers to lace Snow White's dress up, and pulls the laces so tight she faints. The second time, the queen is selling poisoned combs, and Snow White is incapacitated when she puts one in her hair. Both times, the dwarves resuscitate Snow White and warm her not to let any strangers into the house.

The poisoned apple is either an ordinary apple coated with poison, with the queen taking a bite out of the non-poisonous bit to fool Snow White into thinking it is harmless, or - as is the case in the Disney movie - created by magic, if the queen also happens to be a witch.

Answer: Three

In 'La Petite Toute-Belle', Toute-Belle's mother is jealous of her beauty, and also has a servant who hates Toute-Belle and has rather sticky fingers. She pins her thefts on Toute-Belle and offers to get rid of her by shoving her into a well. However, Toute-Belle does not drown; instead, she ends up in a room where three friendly dragons live, and they let her stay with them.

The evil servant sees Toute-Belle in the well and realises she is alive. She tells the mother, and the mother asks a fairy how to kill Toute-Belle. The fairy gives her poisoned sugared almonds, but the dragons figure out that they are poisoned and stop Toute-Belle from eating them. The fairy then gives Toute-Belle a poisoned red dress, and when she puts it on, it incapacitates her. The dragons think she is dead and mourn her, and put her in a shrine on a beach, which is washed away by the tide. A king finds her and believes that she cannot be dead. A servant helps take her dress off, and Toute-Belle wakes up and tells the king everything. He rewards the dragons and asks for Toute-Belle's hand in marriage. He then sends for her mother and asks if she has a marriageable daughter; the mother claims she had one, but then she died. The king shows her that Toute-Belle is very much not dead, and has both the mother and the evil servant burned at the stake.

Answer: The Months

Myrsina's sisters, jealous of her beauty, abandon her in the forest on the pretext of honouring their dead mother. She cries and the trees hear her, and tell her to roll her bread down a hill and follow it. At the bottom of the hill, there is an empty house, and she enters the house and tidies it up. It is also the home of the Months, and the youngest one hides and catches her at it. The Months call her their sister and let her stay with them.

The jealous sisters try to poison Myrsina with a cake, but she cottons on to them when she gives it to a dog and it dies. They then give her a ring which incapacitates her, and instead of a glass coffin, the Months put her in a golden chest. A prince stays with them and spies the chest, and they give it to him on condition that he is never to open it. The prince is so desperate to look in the chest that it makes him ill, and when he opens it and finds Myrsina in it, he takes the ring off her finger and she wakes up. She throws the ring into the sea and marries him, and has her sisters executed by the prince's soldiers.

Answer: Armenia

In 'Nourie Hadig', an Armenian 'Snow White', Nourie Hadig's father leaves her in the woods instead of killing her, and she finds a house with a sleeping prince and a pile of treasure. A voice tells her to cook food for the prince, and she stays there for seven years. Meanwhile, her mother finds out that Nourie Hadig is still alive, and goes to look for her.

Nourie Hadig buys a slave girl and on waking up, the prince sees her tending to him and marries her instead. As a consolation for helping him, he offers to buy Nourie Hadig a present, and she asks for the Stone of Patience, a magic stone which swells up and bursts if someone tells it their troubles, and their troubles happen to be great. Nourie Hadig tells the stone everything and the prince rushes in to marry her, just before the stone goes boom.

Nourie Hadig's mother discovers that she is now a princess, and has a magic ring made for her daughter. The slave girl manipulates Nourie Hadig into wearing it, and she falls into a death-like sleep. The prince watches over her as she did for him, and when he calls doctors to try and heal her, one of them attempts to steal the ring and Nourie Hadig wakes up.

Answer: A statue

Giricoccola and her sisters are the daughters of a merchant, who brings them gold, silver and silk to spin. As Giricoccola is spinning the silk, the moon comments on how beautiful she is, and she says the same thing when they give her the gold and silver thread to spin. The sisters lock Giricoccola in a hayloft, but the moon feels sorry for her and carries her away on a moonbeam. Giricoccola's sisters ask a female astrologer how to get rid of her, and the astrologer tries to sell her things three times: hairpins, combs, and a dress. When Giricoccola puts the pin in her hair, she turns into a statue, and the same happens with the comb, and the moon warns her that if she lets anyone in again, the moon will not turn her back. Sure enough, when Giricoccola puts on a dress that turns her into a statue, the moon has had enough, and sells her to a chimney sweep.

The chimney sweep carries the statue around the city, and a passing prince falls in love with it, buys it, and keeps it in his room. His sisters covet the statue's dress and steal it from her, and Giricoccola comes back to life. When the prince discovers the statue is missing, Giricoccola tells him everything, and the two are married.

Answer: A poisoned thorn

Silver Tree becomes jealous of her daughter Gold Tree's beauty after she asks a trout which one of them is more beautiful, and the trout says it is Gold Tree. Silver Tree pretends to be ill and tells her husband, the king, that the only thing that will cure her is Gold Tree's heart and liver, but as it happens, Gold Tree is to be married to a prince, so the king sends her off to be married and slaughters a deer for its organs instead. Silver Tree sails away to visit her daughter, and when Gold Tree sees her father's longboat on the horizon, she asks her servants to lock her in a room. Silver Tree asks Gold Tree to come out and see her, but Gold Tree refuses, so Silver Tree asks her to put her finger through the keyhole, so that Silver Tree can kiss it. When Gold Tree sticks her finger through the keyhole, Silver Tree stabs her with a poisoned thorn and kills her.

The prince cannot bear to bury Gold Tree, so he puts her body in a locked room and marries again. His second wife finds the body and pulls the thorn out of her finger, and Gold Tree comes back to life. The prince decides to keep both wives. Silver Tree discovers from the trout that Gold Tree is alive and returns to kill her. Silver Tree offers Gold Tree a drink, but the second wife says it is a local custom for a person who offers a drink to take a shot of it first. Silver Tree puts the cup to her lips and the second wife knocks her arm, making her swallow it, and she dies.

Answer: Innkeeper

Bella Venezia is an innkeeper, and whenever travellers visit her inn, she asks them if there are any women in their hometowns more beautiful than her and if they say no, she gives them a discount. However, one guest says her daughter is more beautiful than her. Bella Venezia increases his bill and has her daughter shut up in a hut by the sea, with a servant bringing her food. A man from Rome passes the hut and answers Bella Venezia's usual question by telling her that he has seen an even more beautiful girl in a hut by the sea. Belle Venezia offers to marry the servant if he kills her daughter, but he kills a lamb instead and leaves the daughter in the woods, where she finds a cave where twelve robbers live. She sneaks into the cave and steals some of their food and wine, and tidies the place up. The robber chief finds her and offers to let her live with them.

One of the robbers goes to Bella Venezia's inn and mentions they have a beautiful girl living with them, so she pays a witch to kill her. The witch shoves a hairpin into the daughter's scalp and kills her, and the robbers bury her in a tree. A prince goes hunting in the woods with his dogs, and the dogs scratch on the tree where the daughter is buried. He falls in love with her and takes her home, and the queen calls for the royal hairdresser to fix the girl's hair. After the royal hairdresser breaks several combs trying to do the girl's hair, he finds the pin and pulls it out, and she comes back to life.

Answer: Cymbeline

'Cymbeline' predates the Grimms' collection of fairy tales by a couple of centuries, and it does not contain dwarves or witches, but there are similar plot elements. The wicked queen in 'Cymbeline' is the mother of Prince Cloten, and wants him to marry Cymbeline's daughter Imogen so she can put him on the throne of Britain after having both Cymbeline and Imogen killed. She tries to poison Imogen and orders Pisanio, a servant, to give her a drink that will put her into a death-like sleep (similar to the one Juliet took), but Pisanio, like the huntsman, cannot bring himself to kill Imogen, and instead tells her to run away and take the drink if she feels sick. She dresses as a boy and takes shelter in a cave which is also home to Guiderius and Arviragus (aka Polydore and Cadwal), who - unbeknown to her - are her brothers. Imogen drinks the drink and goes into a death-like state. Cloten dresses up as Posthumus, Imogen's original husband, and tries to rape her, but Guiderius kills him and chops his head off, and places his body next to Imogen's. Imogen wakes up, and is later reunited with the real Posthumus. Also, the wicked queen dies.

Sound familiar?

Answer: The moon

'Thizourith Imella' is one of the more obscure versions of the Snow White story. The heroine has an evil mother, rather than an evil stepmother, and the evil mother asks the moon who is more beautiful out of her and her daughter. The moon replies that while the mother is indeed beautiful, her daughter's beauty eclipses them both, and this makes the mother angry.

She also poisons the heroine later on in the tale, and the heroine is rescued by a sultan, rather than a prince.