WEBVTT 00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:38.240 Hey everybody, welcome back. This is Food for 00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:39.899 Thought, Thoughts that Fit With You, and I'm 00:00:39.899 --> 00:00:46.719 your host, Neogentrics. Again, it's lovely to 00:00:46.719 --> 00:00:49.460 see that everyone is enjoying my different podcasts, 00:00:49.539 --> 00:00:50.880 the different stories that I'm covering, and 00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:52.539 everything else that I've managed to put here 00:00:52.539 --> 00:00:56.060 on my channel. But we're still going with the 00:00:56.060 --> 00:00:58.039 Dark Truths series. There's a lot of stories 00:00:58.039 --> 00:00:59.780 to cover, and there's a lot of things that need 00:00:59.780 --> 00:01:02.619 to be made clear. A lot of these stories that 00:01:02.619 --> 00:01:04.260 everyone seemed to love, that they thought was 00:01:04.260 --> 00:01:08.219 great. You know, growing up and nowadays, we're 00:01:08.219 --> 00:01:11.140 going into a society where the past is being 00:01:11.140 --> 00:01:13.540 forgotten and nobody wants to hear about the 00:01:13.540 --> 00:01:15.579 tragic truths of the past. No one wants to hear 00:01:15.579 --> 00:01:17.819 about how gruesome and how terrible it was. They 00:01:17.819 --> 00:01:21.239 want to move into an age where, you know, everything 00:01:21.239 --> 00:01:24.459 is all rainbows and butterflies. There's only 00:01:24.459 --> 00:01:27.299 one problem with that. With that comes ignorance 00:01:27.299 --> 00:01:30.510 and famed ignorarity. People tend to move away 00:01:30.510 --> 00:01:32.129 from stuff that they don't seem to understand 00:01:32.129 --> 00:01:34.829 or want to enjoy. Even horror films nowadays 00:01:34.829 --> 00:01:39.569 have been made, how do I put it, subliminal, 00:01:39.569 --> 00:01:42.230 where you're basically immune to it. They're 00:01:42.230 --> 00:01:45.170 not scary anymore. They've become a normal type 00:01:45.170 --> 00:01:47.689 of series that you watch. And unless you're some 00:01:47.689 --> 00:01:50.950 type of paranormal freak, you don't really enjoy 00:01:50.950 --> 00:01:54.099 them anymore. The sad thing is, people don't 00:01:54.099 --> 00:01:55.980 seem to understand that if you want something 00:01:55.980 --> 00:01:58.260 that's really horrific, you should probably travel 00:01:58.260 --> 00:02:01.799 into the past, as that's where most of it dwells. 00:02:03.159 --> 00:02:06.200 An example would be Snow White and the Seven 00:02:06.200 --> 00:02:09.319 Dwarves. It's one of the most famous fairy tales 00:02:09.319 --> 00:02:11.560 in the world. You know, it was one of the very 00:02:11.560 --> 00:02:14.159 first Disney animated in their feature film series. 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:18.460 However, the true story that inspired Snow White 00:02:18.460 --> 00:02:23.659 is no fairy tale. Margaret Von Walden. Deck. 00:02:24.060 --> 00:02:27.620 Waldeck. Hmm. She was a 16th century princess, 00:02:27.659 --> 00:02:30.259 but the Grimm brothers had to change a few details 00:02:30.259 --> 00:02:34.340 to make the story less, um, wretched, if you 00:02:34.340 --> 00:02:37.460 know what I mean. The real life Snow White battled 00:02:37.460 --> 00:02:41.099 against an evil stepmother, fell in love with 00:02:41.099 --> 00:02:45.460 a prince, was poisoned, but there was no happy 00:02:45.460 --> 00:02:48.000 ending for Margaret, just like the tragic story 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:52.340 behind Beauty and the Beast. If you haven't heard 00:02:52.340 --> 00:02:55.259 that podcast yet, you should probably go and 00:02:55.259 --> 00:02:57.659 check it out on my channel. It's somewhere there. 00:02:57.740 --> 00:02:59.860 If I haven't covered it yet, believe me, it will 00:02:59.860 --> 00:03:04.360 be coming to my podcast real soon. Anyway, Margaret's 00:03:04.360 --> 00:03:07.560 biography shows the dangers of entrusting your 00:03:07.560 --> 00:03:13.060 life to royalty when you shouldn't. However bad 00:03:13.060 --> 00:03:17.800 the real Snow White's life was, the dwarves... 00:03:18.120 --> 00:03:21.740 And the story had it actually even worse. Now, 00:03:21.819 --> 00:03:25.180 we know who inspired Snow White. The real story 00:03:25.180 --> 00:03:27.060 behind the dwarves can finally be brought to 00:03:27.060 --> 00:03:30.979 light. No, they weren't happy singing minors 00:03:30.979 --> 00:03:33.060 like Disney portrays them. Instead, they were 00:03:33.060 --> 00:03:35.560 child laborers who were stunted and deformed 00:03:35.560 --> 00:03:38.580 from years of working deep underground. Turns 00:03:38.580 --> 00:03:40.819 out that the real story is not exactly Disney 00:03:40.819 --> 00:03:46.000 material, to be fair. So, before we jump into 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:47.879 that, we're going to take a short break here. 00:03:48.460 --> 00:03:50.919 After that little bit that I just gave you, decide 00:03:50.919 --> 00:03:52.900 if you still want to hear the rest of this story. 00:03:53.039 --> 00:03:56.180 If you do, continue listening. If not, it's probably 00:03:56.180 --> 00:03:58.159 time you change and go to a different episode 00:03:58.159 --> 00:04:01.039 from the listings that I have on my podcast channel. 00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:03.900 Or, check out someone else until the next episode 00:04:03.900 --> 00:04:07.400 on my channel comes out. Until then, I'll just 00:04:07.400 --> 00:04:28.550 be right back. Well, I'm assuming if you made 00:04:28.550 --> 00:04:30.329 it this far that you're willing to hear the rest 00:04:30.329 --> 00:04:32.449 of this story. So if that's the case, let's go 00:04:32.449 --> 00:04:34.269 ahead and move on to the real life Snow White 00:04:34.269 --> 00:04:37.569 and her story and how tragic it actually was 00:04:37.569 --> 00:04:43.089 compared to the fairy tale. In 2013, a scholar 00:04:43.089 --> 00:04:45.930 named Eckhart Sanders, you may remember I mentioned 00:04:45.930 --> 00:04:49.050 him before, argued that Snow White was based 00:04:49.050 --> 00:04:52.670 on the life of a real woman. The woman's name 00:04:52.670 --> 00:04:55.430 was Margaret von Waldeck. a Bavarian princess 00:04:55.430 --> 00:04:58.310 from the 16th century. Margaret grew up in a 00:04:58.310 --> 00:05:01.350 castle and lived in the court of Mary of Hungary, 00:05:01.569 --> 00:05:04.370 sister to Europe's most powerful ruler. Even 00:05:04.370 --> 00:05:06.850 so, her life was way too tragic to be confused 00:05:06.850 --> 00:05:10.410 with a fairy tale. Still, Margaret suffered under 00:05:10.410 --> 00:05:12.889 an evil stepmother after the death of her biological 00:05:12.889 --> 00:05:15.129 mother when Margaret was only four years old. 00:05:15.449 --> 00:05:18.509 Just like Snow White, Margaret was also poisoned, 00:05:18.670 --> 00:05:21.430 only her prince tragically wasn't able to save 00:05:21.430 --> 00:05:26.250 her from her fate. Next, we're going to cover 00:05:26.250 --> 00:05:29.449 the workers in the mine. Like I mentioned before, 00:05:29.829 --> 00:05:33.689 the mines left children stunted and deformed 00:05:33.689 --> 00:05:36.250 from the fact that they used to work in there 00:05:36.250 --> 00:05:41.329 for so long. Long ago, before child labor laws 00:05:41.329 --> 00:05:44.649 became a thing here in the present, Margaret's 00:05:44.649 --> 00:05:47.550 father made poor children work in his mines as 00:05:47.550 --> 00:05:50.430 quasi -slaves. They're not entirely slaves, but 00:05:50.430 --> 00:05:53.149 they weren't entirely free either. The conditions 00:05:53.149 --> 00:05:55.009 were terrible, and many of the children died 00:05:55.009 --> 00:05:57.350 at a very young age, so no one would ever know 00:05:57.350 --> 00:06:00.930 that they existed. And, you know, those who managed 00:06:00.930 --> 00:06:04.089 to survive had severely stunted growth, probably, 00:06:04.149 --> 00:06:06.810 you know, from being overworked and malnourished, 00:06:06.850 --> 00:06:09.649 working in those mines for all those years. Many 00:06:09.649 --> 00:06:12.970 of them also had deformed limbs due to malnutrition, 00:06:13.069 --> 00:06:17.569 as you would imagine. Historian Eckhart Sanders, 00:06:18.040 --> 00:06:20.560 He believed that the dwarves in the fairy tale 00:06:20.560 --> 00:06:22.339 may be based on the poor children who worked 00:06:22.339 --> 00:06:26.600 in the copper mines for Margaret's father. Because 00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:29.120 of their stunted growth and deformed lives, the 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:32.459 child laborers were often called the poor dwarves. 00:06:32.899 --> 00:06:35.379 Unfortunately, there's little record of Margaret's 00:06:35.379 --> 00:06:37.819 relationship with these abused child laborers, 00:06:37.819 --> 00:06:41.240 so they can't really claim that it's actually 00:06:41.240 --> 00:06:46.920 the case. The real Snow White lived in a magical 00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:52.360 castle until her father sent her away. Sort of 00:06:52.360 --> 00:06:57.779 true. Okay. Margaret was the daughter of a German 00:06:57.779 --> 00:07:01.000 count, and from a young age, she was famous for 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:04.639 her beauty, obviously. After her mother died, 00:07:04.860 --> 00:07:07.779 her father remarried, and the young Snow White, 00:07:07.879 --> 00:07:11.240 more or less, was sent away, possibly at her 00:07:11.240 --> 00:07:14.949 stepmother's request. Now, at the age of 12, 00:07:15.069 --> 00:07:17.430 Margaret moved once again to live with her dead 00:07:17.430 --> 00:07:21.089 mother's brother at Valkenburg Castle in the 00:07:21.089 --> 00:07:23.910 Netherlands. Today, only the ruins of the once 00:07:23.910 --> 00:07:27.310 massive castle even still remain. Her life was 00:07:27.310 --> 00:07:30.790 only stable for a short time, as in 1549, when 00:07:30.790 --> 00:07:33.310 she was 16, her father sent her to the court 00:07:33.310 --> 00:07:37.209 of Mary of Hungary in Brussels. Margaret's father 00:07:37.209 --> 00:07:39.569 was hoping to use his beautiful daughter to sway 00:07:39.569 --> 00:07:44.589 the Holy Roman Empire to his side, but... The 00:07:44.589 --> 00:07:47.689 plot ended very badly for Margaret. And like 00:07:47.689 --> 00:07:50.509 with Snow White, Margaret also still had an evil 00:07:50.509 --> 00:07:53.149 stepmother she had to deal with. Like I mentioned 00:07:53.149 --> 00:07:56.829 before, after her mother died, her father, Count 00:07:56.829 --> 00:08:00.350 Philip IV, my Roman numerals, I'm getting them 00:08:00.350 --> 00:08:03.290 confused, of Waldeck remarried, like I've mentioned 00:08:03.290 --> 00:08:07.709 before, his new wife was Catherine von Hotsfield. 00:08:08.230 --> 00:08:11.279 Even as a teenager, though, Margaret was famous 00:08:11.279 --> 00:08:13.540 for her beauty even during this period, and like 00:08:13.540 --> 00:08:17.220 in the fairy tale, the evil stepmother allegedly 00:08:17.220 --> 00:08:22.939 was bitterly jealous of Margaret and her good 00:08:22.939 --> 00:08:26.120 looks. So what do you think Katharina did? She 00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:27.519 ordered her new husband to send her daughter 00:08:27.519 --> 00:08:31.519 far, far away. This request wasn't unusual. Her 00:08:31.519 --> 00:08:34.059 marriage was uncommon. I'm sorry, was common. 00:08:34.299 --> 00:08:36.120 And the children of the previous marriages were 00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:39.950 often cast aside when the new wife arrives. Wow, 00:08:40.029 --> 00:08:43.330 that sounded dark. Margaret would eventually 00:08:43.330 --> 00:08:47.009 be poisoned in Brussels, but unlike in the fairy 00:08:47.009 --> 00:08:49.470 tale, Katharina wasn't actually behind that plot. 00:08:49.629 --> 00:08:53.429 She didn't do anything, as you would have imagined. 00:08:58.090 --> 00:09:01.990 Now that I've covered that, let me take a short 00:09:01.990 --> 00:09:04.450 break here, and I'm going to talk about the dwarves 00:09:04.450 --> 00:09:34.659 for a minute. Okay, so we got that mess out of 00:09:34.659 --> 00:09:38.960 the way. Let's talk about something else. Seven 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:42.340 dwarves, huh? Seven dwarves, seven dwarves, seven 00:09:42.340 --> 00:09:45.580 dwarves. Well, I already told you this is a deal 00:09:45.580 --> 00:09:47.379 with child labor, so do you honestly believe 00:09:47.379 --> 00:09:50.019 that seven dwarves is actually the case? It's 00:09:50.019 --> 00:09:53.440 more like 20, to be fair. Or more, give or take 00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:55.720 on how many actually survived. In the Disney 00:09:55.720 --> 00:09:57.600 version, the dwarves are happy companions to 00:09:57.600 --> 00:10:00.120 Snow White. They protected her from harm and 00:10:00.120 --> 00:10:02.860 worked together to save her life. In the 16th 00:10:02.860 --> 00:10:05.519 century version, however, like I said before, 00:10:05.700 --> 00:10:07.580 they were exploited children who work under horrific 00:10:07.580 --> 00:10:11.639 conditions. Margaret's father housed the child 00:10:11.639 --> 00:10:13.940 workers in a copper mining village called... 00:10:13.940 --> 00:10:17.279 Forgive me for the pronunciation of this. I have 00:10:17.279 --> 00:10:22.299 it written down, but... I do believe that's how 00:10:22.299 --> 00:10:25.190 it's pronounced. Anyway, the village... calls 00:10:25.190 --> 00:10:31.830 itself Schneewichtendorf or Snow White's Village 00:10:31.830 --> 00:10:34.309 in English translation. God help me. I'm still 00:10:34.309 --> 00:10:37.490 learning. I'm learning Russian and Italian, not 00:10:37.490 --> 00:10:42.289 German. So like the Disney dwarves, however, 00:10:42.509 --> 00:10:45.429 the child laborers often lived in a single room 00:10:45.429 --> 00:10:49.330 house, but it was a lot more than seven to a 00:10:49.330 --> 00:10:53.129 home. Okay. In the 16th century, it was typical 00:10:53.129 --> 00:10:55.629 for upwards of 20 child laborers to share a single 00:10:55.629 --> 00:10:58.570 room. Disney's version might have been different 00:10:58.570 --> 00:11:02.649 if it was called Snow White and the 20 malnourished 00:11:02.649 --> 00:11:06.350 children workers. But, I mean, for lack of a 00:11:06.350 --> 00:11:08.570 better phrasing and Disney trying to make it 00:11:08.570 --> 00:11:11.110 as child -friendly as they possibly can. Good 00:11:11.110 --> 00:11:14.509 on you, Disney, for that much anyway. It doesn't 00:11:14.509 --> 00:11:17.009 change the fact that they weren't as happy as 00:11:17.009 --> 00:11:21.610 they portrayed. While she was in Brussels in 00:11:21.610 --> 00:11:24.330 the court of Mary of Hungary, Margaret met a 00:11:24.330 --> 00:11:28.029 real prince. That part is no lie. Mary's nephew 00:11:28.029 --> 00:11:31.169 was only 22 when they met, but he was also the 00:11:31.169 --> 00:11:33.690 son of Europe's most powerful ruler, the Holy 00:11:33.690 --> 00:11:38.169 Roman Empire's Charles V. His name was Philip. 00:11:38.950 --> 00:11:41.549 Irony. But he was later known as King of Spain, 00:11:41.710 --> 00:11:45.769 Philip II, for various reasons. Margaret met 00:11:45.769 --> 00:11:49.039 Philip during one... of the prince's visits with 00:11:49.039 --> 00:11:51.580 his aunt. Philip pursued Margaret for months, 00:11:51.620 --> 00:11:55.879 and the two reportedly had a steamy love affair, 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:58.659 if you will. Tragically, though, their love was 00:11:58.659 --> 00:12:02.179 doomed, as Margaret was Protestant and Philip 00:12:02.179 --> 00:12:05.740 was Catholic. If that wasn't enough to keep the 00:12:05.740 --> 00:12:08.240 two apart, after a brief romance, Margaret was 00:12:08.240 --> 00:12:13.679 murdered, as I mentioned before. Now, in real 00:12:13.679 --> 00:12:15.759 life, the evil stepmother wasn't actually the 00:12:15.759 --> 00:12:18.320 murderer, like in the story. The brothers Grimm 00:12:18.320 --> 00:12:20.580 eventually wrote down the story of Snow White 00:12:20.580 --> 00:12:23.039 in the 19th Street book of fairy tales. But when 00:12:23.039 --> 00:12:24.940 they did that, the brothers rewrote the parts 00:12:24.940 --> 00:12:26.779 of Margaret's story to make it read more like 00:12:26.779 --> 00:12:28.940 a fairy tale. And in the brother Grimm's version, 00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:31.519 the evil stepmother has a magic mirror that she 00:12:31.519 --> 00:12:34.399 uses every morning, asking it mirror mirror on 00:12:34.399 --> 00:12:36.919 the wall. Who is the in this land is the fairest 00:12:36.919 --> 00:12:40.019 of them all or something of that nature. And 00:12:40.019 --> 00:12:42.889 in the original. However, the evil stepmother 00:12:42.889 --> 00:12:45.149 is eventually driven mad with jealousy over Snow 00:12:45.149 --> 00:12:47.309 White's beauty. She disguises herself as a peddler 00:12:47.309 --> 00:12:51.049 and chokes Snow White to death with a lace bonnet 00:12:51.049 --> 00:12:54.129 or a poison apple in some versions that we're 00:12:54.129 --> 00:12:57.950 more familiar with. In real life, though, Margaret 00:12:57.950 --> 00:13:00.509 was killed, but her stepmother wasn't the killer. 00:13:00.649 --> 00:13:03.389 Margaret's stepmother actually died before Margaret 00:13:03.389 --> 00:13:09.659 actually did. On another unrelated note. The 00:13:09.659 --> 00:13:11.980 poison apple was actually, like I said before, 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:16.799 which was added later. How do I put this? Margaret, 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:19.019 hold on, let me go back to this. Margaret was 00:13:19.019 --> 00:13:21.960 actually really poisoned, but there was no apple 00:13:21.960 --> 00:13:25.759 involved. Okay, if the Snow White's fairy tale 00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:28.600 was based on Margaret's life, you know, why did 00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:30.840 later versions change the murder weapon to an 00:13:30.840 --> 00:13:35.299 apple? Well, the change up might have happened 00:13:35.299 --> 00:13:37.879 to make the story a little juicier, if you will. 00:13:38.669 --> 00:13:41.490 Although the showdown between the disguised stepmother 00:13:41.490 --> 00:13:43.470 and the innocent Snow White is pretty high tension 00:13:43.470 --> 00:13:47.610 to start with. However, there might have been 00:13:47.610 --> 00:13:50.830 a historical basis for the poisoned apple story. 00:13:52.289 --> 00:13:56.549 How do I put this? German historian Eckhart Sanders 00:13:56.549 --> 00:13:58.570 argues that the poisoned apple in the Snow White 00:13:58.570 --> 00:14:00.730 fairy tale came from a different historical event. 00:14:00.909 --> 00:14:03.590 An old man was once arrested in Germany for giving 00:14:03.590 --> 00:14:08.860 poisoned apples to children. Um, and he was suspected 00:14:08.860 --> 00:14:12.159 the children were stealing. He suspected that 00:14:12.159 --> 00:14:14.539 the children were stealing his fruit. So he poisoned 00:14:14.539 --> 00:14:17.879 a few of the pieces to teach them a lesson. Although 00:14:17.879 --> 00:14:21.059 the idea of using poison fruit as a weapon might 00:14:21.059 --> 00:14:23.139 have found its way into the Snow White story 00:14:23.139 --> 00:14:26.700 based off of that story as inspiration. Though 00:14:26.700 --> 00:14:29.500 I don't condone people for, I mean, how do I 00:14:29.500 --> 00:14:31.480 put this? If you find someone stealing from your 00:14:31.480 --> 00:14:34.879 stuff, don't kill them. Especially if they're 00:14:34.879 --> 00:14:41.629 children. Not like that, anyway. However, moving 00:14:41.629 --> 00:14:45.269 forward, that's kind of the basis where the apple 00:14:45.269 --> 00:14:48.549 came from. But again, like I said, the original 00:14:48.549 --> 00:14:50.769 real -life Snow White Margaret was poisoned, 00:14:50.809 --> 00:14:53.649 but the apple wasn't the way that she had died. 00:14:53.970 --> 00:14:55.909 And the stepmother couldn't have actually done 00:14:55.909 --> 00:14:58.669 it, like I said before, because she already had 00:14:58.669 --> 00:15:03.549 died before her. So, let's take a short break 00:15:03.549 --> 00:15:05.620 here. And then I'm going to move forward into 00:15:05.620 --> 00:15:29.460 what happened next. Seeing how we finally came 00:15:29.460 --> 00:15:32.600 to terms that the stepmother in the real life 00:15:32.600 --> 00:15:35.899 version of Snowlight, didn't actually kill her 00:15:35.899 --> 00:15:40.779 like in the story versions it kind of begs the 00:15:40.779 --> 00:15:46.360 question who murdered her then because obviously 00:15:46.360 --> 00:15:49.440 she had to die of poison somehow in some way 00:15:49.440 --> 00:15:53.299 for the story to be based off of that right well 00:15:53.299 --> 00:15:57.980 let's have a look shall we in real life margaret 00:15:57.980 --> 00:15:59.899 didn't live a happily ever after we understand 00:15:59.899 --> 00:16:03.470 this She had a whirlwind romance with King Philip 00:16:03.470 --> 00:16:07.730 II of Spain, but true enough to what I mentioned 00:16:07.730 --> 00:16:10.909 before, love's kiss couldn't bring her back to 00:16:10.909 --> 00:16:13.730 life. What's more, her murder had more to do 00:16:13.730 --> 00:16:15.990 with the royal politics than it did with beauty, 00:16:16.149 --> 00:16:20.529 which is ironic. Philip was heir to the throne 00:16:20.529 --> 00:16:25.429 of Spain, and his father was Holy Roman Emperor 00:16:25.429 --> 00:16:29.889 Charles V. That's a mouthful. the most powerful 00:16:29.889 --> 00:16:33.669 ruler in Europe at that period. Charles was in 00:16:33.669 --> 00:16:36.629 the middle of a bloody conflict with his Protestant 00:16:36.629 --> 00:16:38.830 subjects who were revolting against their emperor 00:16:38.830 --> 00:16:42.789 in the middle of the Reformation. Charles couldn't 00:16:42.789 --> 00:16:46.110 allow his son to fall for a Protestant like Margaret. 00:16:46.620 --> 00:16:48.580 Because, you know, he was trying to deal with 00:16:48.580 --> 00:16:50.820 all of that at the same time. And according to 00:16:50.820 --> 00:16:53.299 some historical accounts, Charles sent Spanish 00:16:53.299 --> 00:16:56.379 agents to basically poison Margaret. The plot 00:16:56.379 --> 00:17:00.799 worked, and she died only 21 years old. Dun, 00:17:00.899 --> 00:17:06.579 dun, dun. The king of the prince, who was supposedly 00:17:06.579 --> 00:17:09.759 her savior in the story, more or less, is the 00:17:09.759 --> 00:17:15.589 one who killed her. Not the stepmother. But, 00:17:15.609 --> 00:17:16.930 you know, that doesn't exactly work out well 00:17:16.930 --> 00:17:21.250 for happily ever afters or bedtime fairy tales. 00:17:22.269 --> 00:17:25.250 Father attempts to poison the sons. The prince 00:17:25.250 --> 00:17:28.569 is very mate, but then the prince comes and saves 00:17:28.569 --> 00:17:30.250 her. Yeah, that's going to work over really well. 00:17:31.569 --> 00:17:36.630 Anyway. The real Snow White white dwarves. Regardless 00:17:36.630 --> 00:17:39.910 of the version, Snow White always appears with 00:17:39.910 --> 00:17:42.779 the seven dwarves and. It's a central part of 00:17:42.779 --> 00:17:44.920 the fairy tale and is made explicit to the title 00:17:44.920 --> 00:17:47.720 of Disney for their version. In the Grimm's version, 00:17:47.859 --> 00:17:49.539 though, the dwarves live together in a house 00:17:49.539 --> 00:17:52.420 and dig ore from the mountain. They take in Snow 00:17:52.420 --> 00:17:54.440 White after her stepmother's first attempt to 00:17:54.440 --> 00:17:57.180 end her life, in this version. They protect her 00:17:57.180 --> 00:17:59.420 when her stepmother tries again to kill her. 00:17:59.480 --> 00:18:02.569 So, who are the dwarves in Margaret's life? It 00:18:02.569 --> 00:18:04.710 turns out that her father owned several copper 00:18:04.710 --> 00:18:08.349 mines, and just like the mines that the dwarves 00:18:08.349 --> 00:18:10.930 visited every day in their cheery hi -ho song, 00:18:11.190 --> 00:18:13.549 which I'm not going into right now, unfortunately, 00:18:13.869 --> 00:18:16.630 the real copper mines were nothing to sing about, 00:18:16.750 --> 00:18:18.750 and the child laborers who worked there were 00:18:18.750 --> 00:18:21.990 in no position to save anybody. If not anything, 00:18:22.230 --> 00:18:27.079 they needed saving themselves. On the other hand, 00:18:27.140 --> 00:18:29.700 there's another theory that claims that the real 00:18:29.700 --> 00:18:32.299 -life Snow White was an 18th century princess 00:18:32.299 --> 00:18:36.440 also. While there's a great deal of evidence 00:18:36.440 --> 00:18:39.519 that Margaret von Waldeck inspired the Snow White 00:18:39.519 --> 00:18:41.539 story, some believe that the fairy tale is actually 00:18:41.539 --> 00:18:44.880 based on a different German princess, Maria Sophia 00:18:44.880 --> 00:18:49.519 von Erthel. She was born in 1729, I believe, 00:18:49.799 --> 00:18:52.559 in Bavaria, and was the daughter of Prince Philip 00:18:52.559 --> 00:18:58.109 Christoph von Erthel, Maria actually owned a 00:18:58.109 --> 00:19:02.910 talking mirror. I'm going to leave that alone. 00:19:03.609 --> 00:19:07.829 It was an acoustical toy that could speak. And 00:19:07.829 --> 00:19:12.349 it is now at the Spessart Museum in Germany. 00:19:12.490 --> 00:19:14.970 So it still exists. It's still there. And like 00:19:14.970 --> 00:19:19.269 Margaret, Maria Sofia also had close ties to 00:19:19.269 --> 00:19:21.410 the mines. She grew up near the mining town of 00:19:21.410 --> 00:19:30.940 Biber. Irony of name. where only very short miners 00:19:30.940 --> 00:19:33.460 could access the smallest tunnels. These workers 00:19:33.460 --> 00:19:39.940 often wore bright hoods and dark outfits, just 00:19:39.940 --> 00:19:45.259 like the dwarves in the fairy tale. Needless 00:19:45.259 --> 00:19:48.039 to say, It isn't surprising that there are multiple 00:19:48.039 --> 00:19:50.119 real life stories that match so closely with 00:19:50.119 --> 00:19:52.420 the Snow White fairy tale. I mean, during the 00:19:52.420 --> 00:19:54.980 17th century, 20 to 25 percent of all children 00:19:54.980 --> 00:20:00.000 lost a birth parent in a time when morality was 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:02.839 high, especially for childbearing women. A number 00:20:02.839 --> 00:20:05.680 of daughters grew up with evil stepmothers or 00:20:05.680 --> 00:20:09.579 Margaret's mother, like in this example, had 00:20:09.579 --> 00:20:11.900 nine children before she died and she was still 00:20:11.900 --> 00:20:17.759 in her 30s. So, holy hell, nine children? I wrote 00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:21.619 this down. I didn't read it. Okay. Anyway, it's 00:20:21.619 --> 00:20:23.940 possible that Snow White's story was actually 00:20:23.940 --> 00:20:26.039 based on Maria instead of Margaret. But hey, 00:20:26.140 --> 00:20:30.240 who's to say? Rather than Margaret or the fable, 00:20:30.420 --> 00:20:33.660 you know, could be a mix of multiple true stories 00:20:33.660 --> 00:20:35.759 altogether. I mean, you never really know. But 00:20:35.759 --> 00:20:38.799 the whole point of this is that the real life 00:20:38.799 --> 00:20:41.619 version or real people that it was based off 00:20:41.619 --> 00:20:43.599 of didn't exactly have the same kind of happy 00:20:43.599 --> 00:20:47.259 ending that we know of. And the children that 00:20:47.259 --> 00:20:51.559 worked in the mines weren't actually happy -go 00:20:51.559 --> 00:20:54.299 -lucky dwarves that could save anybody in each 00:20:54.299 --> 00:20:57.000 version of the story anyway. And even if it was 00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:00.160 the short man who mined that in the Maria Sophia 00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:03.700 version of the story, based off of the real life 00:21:03.700 --> 00:21:07.900 Maria Sophia, there's still not a chance in hell 00:21:07.900 --> 00:21:10.500 that the dwarves would be able to save her, let 00:21:10.500 --> 00:21:13.029 alone... help her out in their condition since 00:21:13.029 --> 00:21:16.170 they work in those mines. And in a lot of places, 00:21:16.329 --> 00:21:18.369 these mines were considered poisonous in their 00:21:18.369 --> 00:21:20.509 own right, so these guys would have been weak, 00:21:20.589 --> 00:21:23.849 not exactly strong enough to do anything. Regardless, 00:21:24.170 --> 00:21:26.950 Margaret von Waldeck's tragic life is a reminder 00:21:26.950 --> 00:21:28.650 that falling in love with a prince doesn't always 00:21:28.650 --> 00:21:32.009 lead to a happy ending. And I just thought I'd 00:21:32.009 --> 00:21:34.309 go ahead and point that out. That wasn't the 00:21:34.309 --> 00:21:36.750 whole point of me giving this story or this spiel 00:21:36.750 --> 00:21:39.140 in the first place. No point in this was to let 00:21:39.140 --> 00:21:41.599 you know that the story isn't as gung -ho as 00:21:41.599 --> 00:21:44.359 everyone thinks it is. But then, most of these 00:21:44.359 --> 00:21:49.859 stories aren't. And with that, I bring this to 00:21:49.859 --> 00:21:52.680 a close. I thank you guys for listening. Again, 00:21:52.920 --> 00:21:55.059 this is Food for Thought Thoughts, if it were 00:21:55.059 --> 00:21:57.619 you. I'm your host, NeoGentrix. Look forward 00:21:57.619 --> 00:22:00.720 to the next Dark Truth Reveal episode. Until 00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:02.700 then, enjoy the rest of your day.