Through a textual prologue told via a stop-motion storybook, the audience is told that Snow White is a princess living with her stepmother, a vain and wicked Queen who is assumed to have taken over the kingdom after the death of Snow White's father. Fearing Snow White's beauty surpassing her own, the Queen forced her to work as a scullery maid and asked her Magic Mirror daily "who is the fairest one of all". For many years the mirror always answered that the Queen was, pleasing her.