Favorite Snow Whites, Part 6: Marigo: An Albanian Snow White with Dragons

This is an edited repost about Snow White that I originally published in 2010.

Dragons, dragons, DRAGONS! If you read enough around the web, you will see references to a Snow White variant in which her hosts are not dwarves--which actually they seldom are--but dragons. 

The truth of the matter is that, yes, in at least one Snow White variant the heroine--here named Marigo--ends up living in a castle with 40 drachen after escaping her stepmother and father. The Albanian tale is "Schneewittchen" and can be found in Johann Georg von Hahn's Griechische und Albanesische Märchen.

The issue is the definition and translation of drachen. Most German dictionaries only offer "dragon (as in mythical lizard)" or "kite (as in go fly one)" as the translation for "drachen." However, there appears to be an almost archaic, less common reference to "heroic men" that doesn't appear in many dictionaries. But overall, scholars translate the drachen in that tale as heroic men, not literal lizardy dragons as wonderful as that may be.

And, considering that in the majority of the Snow White tales from across Europe, the Snow White character ends up with either heroes (such as retired soldiers) or robbers as housemates and protectors, it only makes sense. 

But don't let this news disappoint you. Whether there be lizardy dragons in the tale or not, it is one of the more interesting of the Snow White variants. 

For example, Marigo kills her mother through her teacher's instructions and the teacher then becomes her wicked stepmother. This scenario doesn't appear in many Snow Whites although it is found in other tale variants, such as some Cinderellas. Better yet, the father is not absent but complicit for he tries to kill his daughter as his new wife demands although he is fortunately unable to carry through. At first, he tries the passive aggressive route to murder--abandoning her in the wilderness--which spares her life. [Nope, no huntsman in this one.]

Then when the stepmother learns that Marigo is still alive, she sends the father back time and again in disguises to kill his daughter. So the father is the co-villain for he fails to stand up for and protect his own daughter who is herself not quite innocent having killed her own mother. (As I've said before, you just can't beat a fairy tale for amazing storylines.) This tale also ends with Snow White being revived and married to her prince charming, but her parents are not punished for their crimes. They are simply not mentioned after her revival. The ending is rather abrupt actually, but fascinating for that very reason.

Yes, it is a very interesting variant of the tale, a great horror movie plot for the taking.

(This one is going on my short list of tales I'd love to hand to people who get that condescending tone when they learn I work with and study fairy tales. "Oh, how sweet!"  Sure, if matricide and other forms of murder are "sweet."  This isn't one you'll be reading to your child at bedtime anytime soon, I'm sure.)

I translated the tale from the German and it is included in Sleeping Beauties: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Tales From Around the World. as "29. Snow White from Albania." And I kept the term "dragons" in my translation.  It is such a wonderful word that I hated to change it to another less romantic term...

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