The True Story Behind Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

By | December 4, 2018

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Priscilla Presley as the Wicked Queen at the launch of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in December 2012 at the New Wimbledon Theatre in London. (Photo by Ian West/PA Images via Getty Images)

Often, fairy tales have some basis in fact. That could be the case with the classic story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Although the Disney version of the fairytale is wholesome and features a happily ever after ending, historians tend to believe that there are some kernels of truth in this fairytale. They point to one possible person as the basis for the real-life Snow White…a beautiful young girl with a jealous stepmother who lived in a mining town full of diminutive miners and a person with a fondness for poisoned apples. Here is what could be the real story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. 

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Could Margarete von Waldeck be the Real Snow White?

Margarete von Waldeck was born in 1533 in the town of Waldeck, Germany. Her family was so prominent in the town, apparently, that it was named after them. There is a painting of Margarete that is still in existence and, from it, we can see that she was a beautiful young woman. Records of the time tell us that Margarete’s mother, Margarethe con Ostfriesland, died in childbirth when Margarete was just four years old. And we know that her father, Count Philipp IV von Waldeck-Wildungen, remarried, meaning young Margarete had a step-mother named Katharina von Hatzfeld.