There is another Brothers Grimm tale called Snow White and Rose Red which also includes a character called Snow White. However, this Snow White is a completely separate character from the one found in this tale. The original German names are also different: Schneewittchen and Schneeweißchen. There is actually no difference in the meaning (both mean "snow white"), but the first name is more influenced by the dialects of Low Saxon while the second one is the standard German version, implying a class difference between the two Snow Whites.
Another possibility is that the story of Snow White merged with the story of Elizabeth I of England and her rival and ultimately her victim Mary Stuart (Mary Queen of Scots). Her biographers described Mary as having skin of snow, blackest hair, and lips blood red. She was considered a beauty all her life. The story goes that Mary brought two venetian mirrors from France and wanting to give Elizabeth, her cousin, a gift, sent her one mirror and had her portrait placed into the other matching frame. The two were wrapped in straw and sent to Elizabeth. Elizabeth was much older than Mary Stuart and not as beautiful. In addition, Elizabeth had never had a real mirror, just rubbed metal plate. When she first saw herself in the Venetian mirror, she saw her age and her flaws clearly for the first time. Then she looked at the portrait of her beautiful cousin and her hatred was complete. She felt Mary was mocking her. Mary was young and would surely take the throne form her old maid cousin, eventually. The rumor is that you could hear Elizabeth screaming all the way to Westminster and that she threw her shoe and broke the costly mirror. She simultaneously hatched the scheme to imprison and kill Mary, and abduct her son to be raised as her heir.
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Famous quotes containing the words snow, white, rose and/or red:
“Physical force has no value, where there is nothing else. Snow in snow-banks, fire in volcanoes and solfataras is cheap. The luxury of ice is in tropical countries, and midsummer days. The luxury of fire is, to have a little on our hearth; and of electricity, not the volleys of the charged cloud, but the manageable stream on the battery-wires. So of spirit, or energy; the rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the cannibals in the Pacific.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Then came the Lord Chamberlain with his white staff,
And all the people began to laugh;
And then the Queen began to speak,
‘You’re welcome home, Sir Francis Drake.’”
—Unknown. Upon Sir Francis Drake’s Return from His Voyage about the World, and the Queen’s Meeting Him (l. 5–8)
“The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
O, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.”
—John Boyle O’Reilly (1844–1890)
“Now I am alone with the dead,
flying off bridges,
hurling myself like a beer can into the wastebasket.
I am flying like a single red rose,
leaving a jet stream
of solitude....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)