Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

And so:

 

A year passed away, and the King took another wife. She was very beautiful, but so proud and haughty that she could not bear to be surpassed in beauty by anyone. She possessed a wonderful mirror which could answer her when she stood before it and said-

"Mirror, mirror upon the wall, Who is the fairest of all?"

The mirror answered-

"Thou, O Queen, art the fairest of all,"

and the Queen was contented, because she knew the mirror could speak nothing but the truth.

But as time passed on, Little Snow-White grew more and more beautiful, until when she was seven years old, she was as lovely as the bright day, and still more lovely than the Queen herself, so that when the lady one day asked her mirror-

"Mirror, mirror upon the wall, Who is the fairest fair of all?"

it answered-

"O Lady Queen, though fair ye be, Snow-White is fairer far to see."

The Queen was horrified, and from that moment envy and pride grew in her heart like rank weeds, until one day she called a huntsman and said "Take the child away into the woods and kill her, for I can no longer bear the sight of her. And when you return bring with you her heart, that I may know you have obeyed my will."

The huntsman dared not disobey, so he led Snow-White out into the woods and placed an arrow in his bow to pierce her innocent heart, but the little maid begged him to spare her life, and the child's beauty touched his heart with pity, so that he bade her run away.

Then as a young wild boar came rushing by, he killed it, took out its heart......

From the Brothers Grimm 1857

When I was a kid I used to watch Walt Disney's Disneyland TV show. Often it featured a magic mirror where some scary old man in a Greek tragedy mask would appear in the misty darkness of the mirror and laugh evilly.

It gave me nightmares.

And a hundred years later became the genesis for this image for Illustration Friday's "Vanity." Of course since then I have become aware of the genre of painting known as Vanitas, which refers to the transience of life - (or intransigence of death). You can read about it here if you like.

I hope you don't mind, I have the comments off again - just so you can get some work done :)

Thank you very much  for looking - I appreciate it very much ......

 See you at your bloggs.

PS here's a wonderful artist I just found about a minute ago ....