Once upon a time, in the middle of winter, the snowflakes were falling like feathers from the sky. At a castle window framed in ebony sat a young Queen working at her embroidery, and as she was stitching away and gazing at the snowflakes now and then, she pricked her finger and three little drops of blood fell down upon the snow. And because the red color looked so beautiful there on the snow she thought to herself, “Oh, if I only had a little child as white as snow, as rosy red as blood, and with hair as ebon...