Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Snow White was very hungry and very thirsty, so she ate a piece of bread from each plate, and drank a drop of wine from each little cup. Then, as she was also very tired, she lay down on one of the beds. It did not suit her, how ever; none of the beds seemed to please her; one was too long, and another was too short, and another was too hard, and another was too soft, and so on. She tried them all, one after another, until she came to the seventh, and that was just right for her, so she lay down on it and fell fast asleep.

When it was dark, the masters of the house came home, These were seven dwarfs, who dug in the mountains all day for treasure. They lit their seven candles when they came in, and then they saw that some one had been in the house.

The first dwarf said, "Who has been sitting in my chair?" The second of them said, "Who has been eating from my plate?" The third dwarf said, "Who has taken some of my bread?" The fourth said, "Who has been drinking out of my little cup?" The fifth said, "Who has used my little fork?" The sixth said, "Who has been cutting with my little knife?" The seventh said, "Who is this lying upon my bed?" Then the others all came crowding up to him, bringing their candles with them.

They held their candles up so that the light fell upon Snow-White, and when they saw her, the whole seven cried out with one voice, "What a pretty little maid!" The good dwarfs were so much pleased with her that they allowed her to remain sleeping where she was, and the seventh dwarf, to whom belonged the bed which she had chosen, spent the night with his companions, sleeping one hour in each of the other little beds until the morning.

This Image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, where Works published prior to 1923 are copyright protected for a maximum of 75 years. See Circular 1 "COPYRIGHT BASICS" PDF from the U.S. Copyright Office. Works published before 1923, in this case 1885, are now in the public domain.

This file is also in the public domain in countries that figure copyright from the date of death of the artist (post mortem auctoris) in this case Caroline Paterson (1856-1911), and that most commonly runs for a period of 50 to 70 years from December 31 of that year.

TEXT and IMAGE CREDIT: Three fairy princesses: Snow-white, the sleeping beauty, Cinderella. The old stories illustr. by C. Paterson, Author Three fairy princesses Illustrated by Caroline Paterson (1856-1911). Published: 1885. Original from: Oxford University. Digitized: Sep 11, 2007.