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The preceding studies in this issue have shown mat Snow White has very much a life of its own in folk tradition - despite me overwhelming impact of both the Grimm tale and Walt Disney's animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), and despite the existence of numerous other literary and medial adaptations. The influence of printed Snow White versions on me variants collected from oral tradition is often taken for granted. I will therefore try to outline the history of Snow White as a book tale and to relate me written sources to me oral ones, as far as this is possible.
Snow White is, on the one hand, a tale-type structured according to the criteria defined by Steven Swann Jones1; on the other, it is characterized by a combination of very strong images (or clusters of motifs) which may vary culturally. The heroine of the tale-type called Snow White very often bears anomer name (diminutive and endearing forms of Maria or Rosa are just as common as are more florid terms)2 but is always beauty and youth personified. In essence, she is an ideal of feminine perfection which makes her the center of violent passions: she is beloved by men and abhorred by women. Illustrating the law of exception, this overall pattern can be subtly and symmetrically counterpointed - one man, usually the heroine's father, may act as the helper of me female villain3, and very often a woman who is part of the household of me heroine's future husband (his momer or sister, a maid) brings about the happy resolution4 - while male love and female hatred remain the core themes of the tale-type. Under me impression of the Grimm version which represents me heroine as a seven-year-old child and me dwarfs as inoffensive fellows and which considerably downplays me role of the prince, studies usually concentrate on me antagonism between Snow White and her cruel momer or stepmother; however, if we look at the folk material, it is this double theme of love and hatred that prevails: the heroine is persecuted by a jealous woman (or a group of women) belonging in most cases to the closest circle of her family whereas the men she encounters (the strangers) invariably...