This book contains the following stories:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
A queen sat sewing and pricked her finger. A spot of blood fell on her white cloth and she sighed. 'How I wish I could have a daughter with cheeks as red as blood, hair as black as ivory and skin as white as snow'. The queen's wish was granted and soon she gave birth to a beautiful daughter who she named Snow White. But then the queen died and the king remarried. The new queen was very vain and every day she would ask her mirror 'Mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all', to which the mirror would reply, 'You are the fairest o queen'. Time passed and the queen got older and her face dropped, and Snow White grew into a beautiful woman. The day came when the mirror in all honesty could not say that the queen was the most beautiful of them all, but had to reply 'O queen lovely as you are, Snow White is now fairer'. The queen was very cross and ordered a huntsman to take Snow White into the forest and kill her, bringing back her heart as proof of the deed. The huntsman could not bear to kill Snow White so he left her alive in the forest and took back the heart of an animal instead. But the mirror revealed that Snow White was still alive and living as a housemaid with seven dwarfs. The Queen set out to kill Snow White herself. When the girl ate the poisoned apple she dropped down as if dead and the Queen was satisfied. The dwarfs wept over the glass coffin. A prince was so taken with Snow White's beauty that he lifted her from the coffin, dislodging the apple and so brought her magically back to life. The two were married, and the Queen superceded.
Sleeping Beauty
After a curse is placed upon her as a baby, a princess pricks her finger on a spinning wheel and falls into a deep sleep on her sixteenth birthday. One hundred years later, a handsome prince rides past the forgotten palace. He must undo the curse and finally awaken the princess.
The Princess and the Pea
A prince travelled the world to find a real princess to be his bride, but none of them would quite do. One night during a massive storm a girl knocked on the door claiming to be a princess from down the road looking for shelter. The queen was sceptical so placed a pea under the mattress of the spare bed. Then she piled more and more mattresses onto the bed so that it was so high the girl needed a ladder to climb into bed. ‘Only a real princess will feel the pea under that many mattresses thought the queen’. The next morning the queen asked the girl how she had slept and she complained bitterly about a hard lump in the bed. The queen was delighted and presented the girl to the prince. ‘This is a real princess, ‘ she said. The prince was delighted and the two got married and lived happily ever after.
Cinderella
Cinderella REALLY wants to go to the ball but her wicked stepmother and ugly sisters think she's better off at home doing the chores. Along comes the fairy godmother, waves her magic wand and Cinders's clothes are transformed into a gorgeous ball gown. Off she goes to the palace ball in a pumpkin coach and horses transformed from mice. But when the clock strikes midnight Cinders reverts to her tattered old self, and the prince has only a glass slipper to find his gorgeous girly.
