After seeing the tears in the princess's eyes, the huntsman reluctantly agrees to spare Snow White and brings the Queen a boar's lungs and liver instead.

This time, the dwarfs are unable to revive Snow White, and, assuming that the queen has finally killed her, they place her in a glass casket as a funeral for her.

As punishment for the attempted murder of Snow White, the prince orders the Queen to wear a pair of red-hot iron slippers and to dance in them until she drops dead.

Scholars have theorized about the possible origins of the tale, with folklorists such as Sigrid Schmidt, Joseph Jacobs and Christine Goldberg noting that it combines multiple motifs also found in other folktales.

[12] Karlheinz Bartels, a pharmacist and scholar from Lohr am Main, a town in northwestern Bavaria, created a tongue-in-cheek theory that Snow White was Maria Sophia Margarethe Catharina, Baroness von und zu Erthal, born in 1725.

[26] A primary analysis by Celtic folklorist Alfred Nutt, in the 19th century, established the tale type, in Europe, was distributed "from the Balkan peninsula to Iceland, and from Russia to Catalonia", with the highest number of variants being found in Germany and Italy.

[29] A similar assessment was made by scholar Sigrid Schmidt, who claimed that the tale type was "particularly popular" in Southern Europe, "specially" in Italy, Greece and the Iberian Peninsula.

[24] The Brothers Grimm's "Snow White" was predated by several other German versions of the tale, with the earliest being Johann Karl August Musäus's "Richilde" (1782), a satirical novella told from the wicked stepmother's point of view.

[33] The Pentamerone, published 1634-1636, contains some stories with similarities to Snow White, such as an enchanted sleep in "The Young Slave" and a female character with snow-white skin in "The Raven."

In most Italian versions of Snow White, the heroine is not the daughter of a king but an innkeeper, the antagonist is not her stepmother but her biological mother, and instead of dwarfs she takes refuge with robbers.

For instance, in La Bella Venezia, an Abruzzian version collected by Antonio De Nino, the mother asks her customers if they have seen a woman more beautiful than she.

[37] A similar version from Siena was collected by Sicilian folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè, in which the heroine, called Ermellina, runs away from home riding an eagle who takes her away to a palace inhabited by fairies.

Ermellina's stepmother sends a witch disguised as her stepdaughter's servants to the fairies' palace to try to kill her twice, first with poisoned sweetmeats and the second time with an enchanted dress.

In this last version, the role of both the mirror and the dwarfs is played by the Moon, which tells the elder sisters that the youngest, called Ziricochel, is the prettiest, and later hides her in his palace.

When the heroine's mother discovers her daughter is still alive, she twice sends a fairy to attempt to kill her, first with sugar almonds, which the dragons warn her are poisoned before she eats them, and then with a red dress.

The dwarf's role is fulfilled by thirteen men who are described as big as giants, who live in a castle in the middle of the forest called "Castell de la Colometa", whose doors can open and close by command.

The Bad Stepmother (La mala madrastra) comes from Sepúlveda, Segovia, and also has instead of seven dwarfs the robbers that live in a cave deep in the forest, that can open and close at command.

"[63] The last one, Blancaflor, is from Siete Iglesias de Trabancos, also in Valladolid, ends with the heroine buried after biting a poisoned pear, and the mirror proclaiming that, now that her stepdaughter is finally dead, the stepmother is the most beautiful again.

[66] In another Scottish version, Lasair Gheug, the King of Ireland's Daughter, the heroine's stepmother frames the princess for the murder of the queen's firstborn and manages to make her swear she'll never tell the truth to anybody.

Lasair Gheug, a name that in Gaelic means Flame of Branches, take refugee with thirteen cats, who turn out to be an enchanted prince and his squires.

After marrying the prince and having three sons with him the queen discovers her stepdaughter is still alive, also thanks to a talking trout, and sends three giants of ice to put her in a death-like state.

With the third gift, a poisoned apple, Snow White falls into a deep sleep, and the dwarfs leave her in the forest, fearing that the king would accuse them of killing her once he comes back.

In this version, the stepmother questions a pair of crystal bowls instead of a magic mirror, and when they tell her that her stepdaughter is prettier, she sends her to a witch's hut where she's tricked to eat a porridge that makes her pregnant.

After disenchanting the twelve princes with her singing, the princess returns to the court, where she's finally restored to her human form, and her mother is punished after she believed she ate her own daughter while she was still under the spell.

[73] Georgios A. Megas collected another Greek version, titled Myrsina, in which the antagonists are the heroine's two elder sisters, and the role of the seven dwarfs is fulfilled by the Twelve Months.

[74] Austrian diplomat Johann Georg von Hahn collected a version from Albania, that also starts with the heroine, called Marigo, getting manipulated by the governess into killing her mother.

After Marigo tells her father to marry the governess, the king refuses, making up various excuses, like his shoes turning red or his robes being full of holes.

But the king doesn't have the heart to murder his own child, so he takes Marigo into the woods and tells her to fetch him the loaf of bread and the wooden flask which he threw off the cliff.

A servant takes Olga to the open field and, in tears, tells the girl the stepmother ordered her to be killed and her heart and little finger brought back as proof of the deed.

[79] Alexander Afanasyev collected a Russian version titled The Magic Mirror, in which the reason that the heroine has to leave her parents' house is different from the usual.