The Wicked Queen Grimhilde – The Untold Story of Snow White’s Stepmother

I’ll make this short and snappy: I am the Wicked Queen. You know, the one everyone whispers about in dread. The one from the stories—cold, cruel, obsessed with beauty. That’s how you know me. But nobody ever asks why. Nobody asks what made me.

It’s easy to assume the worst about people. Villain. Witch. Narcissist. I’ve heard them all. But have you ever considered my side of the story? I wasn’t always like this. No, once upon a time, I was just a little girl. A little girl with dark midnight hair and eyes deep blue as the ocean. Some said they sparkled if you looked long enough—but most never bothered. They dismissed it as a trick of the light.

Because, you see, for all my haunting features, I wasn’t what you’d call beautiful. My nose was a touch too large, with an unsightly bump that made it look broken, though it wasn’t. My cheekbones hid shyly beneath my skin, my eyebrows too thick, shadowing my narrow eyes so they seemed perpetually shrouded in gloom.

My parents, however—they were beautiful. Elegant. Polished. Their presence lit up any room, and with them, I looked like a smudge on a masterpiece. They tried their best with me, raised me delicately, but they didn’t see me—not truly. They praised beauty like it was the only currency that mattered, and I grew up believing I was poor.

Then, when I was just seven, the accident happened. Their carriage overturned in a tangle of wood, iron, and screaming horses. By the time I reached the hospital, there was little left to save. I remember only fragments—shards of memory—but one thing remains crystal clear: my mother’s whisper, faint but fervent.

“Be the most beautiful girl in all the land. My beautiful girl.”

That was her dying wish, her last breath, and I drank those words in like nectar. They took root in me, twisted and thorny.

I transformed. I plucked, powdered, and painted. My eyebrows became sleek arches, my cheekbones accentuated with rouge, my deep eyes brightened with kohl. Yet every reflection whispered that it wasn’t enough. Not yet.

Then, one day, I heard of a place on the east side of my village. A rickety old cottage, walls green with moss, straw roof caving in like a collapsed crown. A crooked sign, once neon, now faded and broken: Wilhelm’s Antiques.

Inside, the air was thick with dust and forgotten things. And behind the counter stood Marty—thin, greasy-haired, his smile wide and gold-toothed, his eyes yellow and wet like spoiled fruit.

“What d’you seek, girl?” he rasped.

“I—I don’t know.” But I did. I wanted beauty. I wanted more.

He chuckled darkly, dragging his limp foot in circles with every step. “You’re after magic. I’ve got just the thing.”

From a high shelf, he pulled down a mirror. An ordinary oval of copper, tarnished and dull—until the surface shimmered with a rainbow sheen, like oil on water.

“This mirror,” he said, “will answer one question of your choosing, as many times as you ask—till you die. It never lies. Choose your question wisely.”

He was asking for five pennies—nearly all I had saved from six years in the orphanage. Then, when I reached into my pocket, he sneered, “Oh, did I say five? I meant six.” I hated him. But I paid.

I took the mirror home, whispered the words: “Magic mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” And for years, it answered: “You are, Grimhilde.”

Every time, a warmth bloomed inside me, as though my mother’s spirit was there, smiling. But when the mirror answered differently, I changed myself. Starved myself thinner. Rouged my cheeks redder. I even—on a night steeped in jealousy—crept into a fellow orphan’s room and hacked off her beautiful hair.

Her screams haunted me for days.

But I wasn’t done.

At eighteen, I left the orphanage, mirror in tow, always asking, always needing to hear it: “You are the fairest of them all.”

And then came Frank—the King. A widower with a gentle soul and a quiet sorrow. When he looked at me, I saw no pity, no judgment. Only admiration. Love bloomed in my chest, fragile as glass. We married. I became Queen. At last—I was enough.

Or so I thought.

Then I met her.

His daughter: Snow White. A name as silly as her sweet, doll-like face. Skin pale as frost, lips redder than rubies, eyes wide and brown with naïve curiosity. She was the very embodiment of beauty—not just in appearance but in presence. She glowed.

I didn’t need the mirror to know the answer anymore. But still, I asked.

“Magic mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”

And it said: “Snow White.”

It was like being slapped, again and again, a ringing in my ears that wouldn’t stop. A dull thrum: She’s better than you. She’s better than you. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think of anything else.

The more the King smiled at her, the deeper my hatred rooted. I became sharper, colder. My once-beautiful face hardened; my eyebrows turned into sharp, accusatory arches, my lips a permanent sneer. I watched myself transform—not into beauty, but into power.

So I turned to the dark arts. Magic that seeped like poison through my veins. I practiced, I sacrificed, and soon, I was a sorceress. You know the rest—how I sent the huntsman to kill her, how he failed. How Snow White escaped to a cottage of seven dwarfs. How I disguised myself as an old peddler woman and handed her the poisoned apple.

You know that I failed. You know that I died.

What you don’t know is what I felt as I lay dying at the bottom of that cliff.

Not fear. Not anger.

Relief.

Because in that moment, I felt the presence of my mother again. Felt her and my father, wrapping their spirits around me—not because I was beautiful or clever, but because I was their daughter.

I forgave myself. I forgave the girl in the orphanage. I forgave Snow White. I forgave Frank.

And they forgave me too.

I died a villain, yes. But I died knowing that I was more than that. I was once a girl who only wanted her mother’s love. And I hope—if the stories ever change—that’s what you’ll remember.

Moral of the Story

Obsession with outward beauty can distort the soul, but redemption comes when we confront our deepest wounds and forgive ourselves. True beauty lies not in the face, but in the heart’s capacity for forgiveness and growth.