Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede

The poor man starts to transform into a beast and is banished from Faerie. The spell the two wizards cast, captures part of Hugh’s essence. The three faeries plan to use the sorcerers for their own ends but fail. The younger is Hugh who takes after his mother who loves him dearly.Ī group of human hating faeries know about Dee and Kelly. Even though he lives in Faerie, he often travels among the humans. The older one is John whom his father baptized so he has a greater affinity with mortals. The Queen of the Faerie has two half mortal sons. But the mixing of mortal and faerie magic has unintended consequences. To do that, they prepare a crystal and cast a spell in the All Hallows Night. Dee and Kelly are sorcerers and intent on getting power from the Fairies. The girls gather the herbs from the forest near the lands of Faerie. The Widow knows some magic and uses herbs gathered from Faerie lands to make medicines for the villagers.

The poor Widow Arden has two daughters, Blanche also called Snow White and Rosamund also called Rose Red. The story has four group of people, working at cross-purposes and mostly ignorant of each other. The characters also speak in Elizabethan English which seems to trouble some readers quite a lot. It has a couple of historical people, too: the Queen’s astrologer John Dee and his associate Edward Kelly. The story is set in Elizabethan England and in a small village called Mortlak, near London. In the afterword Wrede admits that the Grimm tale is rather disjointed. This isn’t the traditional Snow White tale no apples, no stepmothers, no unnatural sleep. Indeed, the only time I’ve seen Snow White with a sister is in the Fables comics. Apparently this is a Grimm story but I’ve never heard it before. This book is a retelling of the fairy tale Snow White and Rose Red.

Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede