The Snow Child

A Count sees snow on the ground while out for a ride with his wife, and wishes for a child ‘as white as snow’. When he sees a hole in the snow containing a pool of blood, he makes a similar wish, this time for a girl as red as blood. And when he sees a raven on the bough of a tree, he wishes for a girl as black as the bird’s feather.

No sooner has he made this third wish than a girl appears by the roadside, with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as the raven’s feather. He desires her, but the Countess’s first thought is how she can get rid of this rival for her husband’s attention. So she deliberately throws one of her gloves onto the snow and commands the girl to bend down and retrieve it.

But the Count merely says he will buy her new gloves. And at that moment, the Countess’s furs sprang from around her neck and wrapped themselves around the naked girl to warm her. The Countess, not one to be put off course easily, throws her diamond brooch into the icy water and commands the girl to fetch it, but the Count dismisses such a suggestion. At that moment, the Countess’s boots leap off her feet and on to the girl’s.

The Countess commands the girl to pick her a rose from the bush, and the Count, feeling sorry for his wife, agrees to this suggestion. But when the girl plucks a rose, a thorn pricks her finger and she dies, bleeding and screaming. In a shocking moment, the Count gets off his horse and violates the dead girl’s corpse while the Countess watches.

When he’s finished, the dead girl melts away into the snow until nothing is left of her except a raven’s feather, a bloodstain, and the rose she plucked. The Count presents the rose to his wife, but when she takes hold of it, it bites her.