Rough Magic: The Wicked Queen

Lilith has been called the Queen of Witches.  Like Diana and Herodias her name appears in witch trials and folklore.  One well known story links Lilith's cave by the Red Sea with "every mirror." In it, a mother buys a mirror in connection to several furnishings for her home.  She places the mirror in the room of her daughter who later becomes possessed by a daughter of Lilith because, "every mirror is a gateway to the Other World and leads directly to Lilith's cave...That is why it is said that Lilith makes her home in every mirror..."  That said, is it likely that such traditions made their way to the mythos collected by the Brothers Grimm?  Enter the Wicked Queen.

   We are all familiar with Snow-white and the Seven Dwarves.  In the earliest version, Snow-white offends her jealous stepmother, the Queen, by possessing richer beauty than her own.  This is discovered by a magic mirror the Queen consults everyday.  "Looking glass upon the wall, who is fairest of us all?"  After the huntsmen tries to deceive her with a deer's heart the Queen makes three attempts on Snow-white's life.  Each time she poses as a peddler and tempts Snow-white with fatal wares.  At first she uses a corset and a comb "poisoned with witchcraft."  In the end she offers Snow-white the fabled apple and temporarily ends her life.  The Queen herself is captured when the heroic Prince weds Snow-white.  Her life ends after she is forced to dance in a pair of red-hot shoes.  Typically, abridged reincarnations omit this part, taking a page (perhaps) from Walt Disney.

   Modern renditions featuring Snow-white and the Wicked Queen attempt to flesh out her back story.  In both  The 10th Kingdom and Once Upon a Time (owned by Disney subordinate ABC) the "Evil Queen" represents a pact or bond between two women, a sort of lineage.  Diane Weist's Evil Queen from The 10th Kingdom was chosen as the successor of the original Queen to continue her work and ruin Snow White's entire house.  Lana Parrilla's Evil Queen from Once Upon a Time was forced into power by conniving mother, who arranges her marriage to the father of Snow White.

   Concerning her connection to the Queen of Demons in Jewish mythology, the Wicked Queen shares several of her motifs.  An apple is used to tempt Snow-white and an apple is used to temp Eve by the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  In art, the serpent has been depicted as Lilith, reflecting an older belief in the Fall of Man.  Consider too the Wicked Queen's fascination with mirrors   Everyday she stood before the magic looking-glass to assess her beauty, not unlike the daughter in the famous Jewish tale.  While it is unlikely that the Wicked Queen is a Brothers Grimm avatar of Lilith she makes an appropriate totem.  Even more likely, their shared features stem from Lilith's lineage in world mythology. Lilith is "the soul of every living thing which creepeth," and the genetrix of every spirit, demon, goblin and fatal entity from the ancient world.  Perhaps like Jadis in C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, the Wicked Queen could be viewed as her descendant.