Snow White at the Dwarf Colony

By Joseph Burgo

In this novella-length re-telling of the classic fairy tale, the wicked queen is Snow White's actual mother and the dwarfs are little people rather than cute Disney-esque caricatures. Two first-person narrators unfold the tale: Gereth the Huntsman, who grew up with Snow White's mother and has observed her complete lack of empathy and ruthless exploitation of other people; and Giddeus the Dwarf, head of the colony, who resents the arrival of Snow White and the influence she brings to bear upon the other dwarfs. The author is a clinical psychologist and noted authority on the subject of narcissism (The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme Narcissists in an All-About-Me Age, Touchstone 2015). In this fully psychological version of Snow White, he explores the themes of shame, envy, narcissism, and failures of empathy, shedding light on some darker aspects of the human psyche.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Burgo
• Release date: Nov 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9780988443174

Joseph Burgo

Joseph Burgo, PhD, has practiced psychotherapy for more than thirty years and held licenses as a marriage and family therapist and clinical psychologist. He earned his undergraduate degree in English Literature at UCLA and both his masters and doctorate in Psychology at California Graduate Institute in Los Angeles. Dr. Burgo has been quoted or featured as an expert on NPR and in publications such as USA TODAY, Glamour, The New York Times, and numerous other publications. As a writer on mental health topics, he is a regular contributor to The Atlantic and a frequent blogger for Psychology Today.

Book preview

Table of Contents

The Huntsman

The Dwarf

SNOW WHITE AT THE DWARF COLONY

by

Joseph Burgo

Copyright © 2015 by Joseph Burgo

All rights reserved. Electronic edition published 2015.

Published in the United States by New Rise Press. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-9884431-7-4

New Rise Press

1818 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Chapel Hill, NC 27514

www.afterpsychotherapy.com

Part I

The Huntsman

I am Gereth, the Huntsman. At Queen Madlen’s behest, I led Snow White into the forest but spared her life; instead, I carried her to the abode of the dwarfs and left her there. Do not judge me until you have heard all my story. Each one of us is a mixture of good and evil; in the end, you may find even Madlen deserving of your pity.

I have known Madlen all her life. My father served as Huntsman to the old Duke and I passed my youth on the estate until she married King Alec. From the time she was four, Madlen took an interest in her father’s horses, and because the stables were near to the kennel where I lived and assisted my father, I saw her almost every day. Whilst I would be exercising the hounds, little Madlen would hang on the railings and watch for hours as trainers put the Duke’s horses through their paces. Despite the distance, I could feel her fascination, how much she longed for connection with their strength and beauty. Though I was ten and she but four, I felt a special bond between us. It might have been our shared early loss that bound us together: each of our mothers had died not long after giving birth to us.

Or perhaps it was because we were both monsters in our own way, though I did not know it then.

Whenever some unexpected sound or movement agitated the horses and set them running, I sensed her excitement. Across the paddocks, tiny motions in her body spoke to me – the lift of her shoulders, head of raven hair tilting slightly back, the way she leaned forward as if to join with those powerful beasts. Though the horses were her father’s possessions, and by extension hers as well, she wanted to own them in some deeper way, to make their magnificence a part of herself. This I could feel.

At home for the midday meal, I kept her in my sights. Our cottage was attached to the kennels, a lean-to with two small rooms, and from its single window I could spy the paddocks at a distance. It had always irked me that Madlen’s grandfather, the Miser Duke who’d built the cottage, had set it so close to the kennels. We could never escape the stink of the hounds, their wet fur and excrement. It also brought the smell of urine-soaked hay, mucked from the stalls and piled upwind from us.

Now and then, Father caught me in my trance as I watched Madlen from the window, as still as a statue, and struck me on the ear, sometimes hard enough to make me bleed. For most of my life, I’ve been partially deaf on the right side.

What’re you glaring at, you idiot fool? A single epithet never sufficed for my father. Get to work or I’ll give you what for!

Giving me what for meant a hiding in the kennel feed room, trousers down around my ankles, his vicious crop leaving bloody welts across my buttocks. Though he never said so, I believe he blamed my birth for his wife’s death, the one leading to the other.

Madlen was an unnaturally beautiful child. With skin the color of fresh cream, lips red as roses and hair black as midnight, she gathered more loveliness into one body than seemed just. Watching her from the enclosure, or from the cottage window, I sometimes wondered how it would feel to be little Madlen, living in the elegant manor house, a daughter of privilege and surely destined for a great marriage. What was it like, to know with certainty that you could have whatever you desired? I believe she knew it even then, at such an early age. Madlen was as shrewd as she was beautiful.

I might have been born Madlen rather than Gereth.

I had always considered myself beneath her notice. That gangly boy with protruding ears and a nose too large for his face, the one always watching from the kennels – he simply did not merit her attention.

She took me by surprise, then, when she one day dropped down from the paddock rails, snapped her head around (long raven hair flying out) and shouted at me. I was standing within the enclosure, attentive hounds awaiting my cue. Madlen wasn’t much more than five years old.

Why do you watch me so, boy? She did not sound angry. I could see it surprised her that I wouldn’t look away; I kept staring back as she strode toward me.

Begging your pardon, Miss. Only keeping an eye out for you.

She stopped and planted her fists upon her hips, legs apart. It was a boyish pose that did not suit her. A distance of five yards, no more, lay between us.

I don’t need you watching out for me, she said, and I don’t like it. I command you to stop.

Yes, Miss. I held my gaze steady. She didn’t mean what she said, not exactly. She had no feeling for me, didn’t even know my name, but admiring attention would always be welcome. It was the idea that she needed protection, from me or from anyone else, that offended her.

Don’t let me catch you doing it again.

I stared at her back as she stepped away. I watched until she disappeared behind the tall hedge that bordered the manor house. All afternoon, whenever the memory would return to me, I smiled.

* * *

I received my first glimpse of Madlen’s true nature on her sixth birthday. She had begged her father for a horse of her very own, but fearing for her safety, the old Duke had told her she must wait until she was older. He gave her a snowy white rabbit instead, in addition to all the other fine birthday gifts, and ordered that a special gilded cage be built for it. After she had opened all her presents that day, Madlen came down to the stables, clutching the rabbit tightly to her chest, her face hard with unhappiness. I watched from the enclosure as she strode back and forth outside the paddocks.

The rabbit wanted to break free. The more it squirmed, the closer she held it. Tiny as she was, Madlen seemed huge with rage. I could almost hear her thoughts, a rant at the injustice of it: how dare they not give her what she wanted! Trapped in those suffocating arms, the panicky little rabbit finally bit her.

Madlen did not scream or drop the animal, as most children would have done. She seemed barely to notice the pain, though it tapped into the rage she felt; for that moment, the bite and the blood it drew seemed to explain everything that had gone wrong in her world. She took the rabbit by the scruff of its neck, carried it over to the nearest trough and plunged it into the water. The terrified animal flailed for its life but Madlen held it firmly below the surface,