, long regarded as the original. Like several of Bruegel's paintings, such as the
Netherlandish Proverbs and ''
Children's Games'', the painting includes many parallel narrative scenes in a larger composition. Working from the church in the background towards the foreground: a mounted soldier with a lance guards a bridge. To the left, a man tries to hide a child. Moving forward and further towards the left, one soldier urinates against a wall; and further left, another soldier guides some women into a house, and a third soldier drags an infant out of another house (one of few infants remaining alive in the painting, and one of few not overpainted in the version in the Royal Collection). A group of four villagers mourns nearby. Moving right, towards the centre of the painting, a lone woman stands grieving over her dead baby lying with blood spilled on the snow (overpainted in the version in the Royal Collection with meats and cheeses), and a couple ask a soldier to take their daughter not their baby son (overpainted in the version in the Royal Collection as a large bird). A crowd of villagers surround and confront a red-coated soldier standing over a dead baby (overpainted as a bundle); or, the villagers try to stop a father from attacking the soldier that killed his baby. A seated woman grieves with her dead baby on her lap (changed to a bundle). Continuing to the right, at the centre of the painting, a group of Spanish soldiers in black armour stab with spears at a group of babies (changed to animals) in front of a large group of mounted soldiers also with lances and wearing black armour. One of the mounted soldiers may be holding a standard of five gold crosses on a white ground, the heraldic
arms of Jerusalem, which alludes to the fact that the Habsburgs, rulers of the
Spanish Netherlands, also claimed the title of
King of Jerusalem. A soldier with striped breeches stabs one child (overpainted as a boar) and another stabs at a baby held by a woman (overpainted as a jug). Further to the right, a single mounted man is surrounded by a group of protesting villagers: originally he was a herald wearing a tabard decorated with a
Habsburg double-headed eagle. At the far right, two mounted soldiers wear red jackets and rounded metal helmets. Some soldiers on foot are breaking into an inn: the inn sign originally showed a star linking it with the
Star of Bethlehem (overpainted in the version in the Royal Collection). One soldier wields an axe and another has a log to use as a
battering ram; three are climbing into an open window, and one with a halberd kicks at a door, shaking off an overhanging icicle which threatens to fall on his head. Moving across the foreground, right to left, a baby (changed to a bundle) has been torn from a mother and her small daughter; a soldier holds back a large dog; and further the left, in the immediate foreground, a soldier is about to stab a child (overpainted as a calf). At the far left, another soldier chases after a woman. A group of mounted soldiers stands in the left foreground, two in black armour with lances, a trumpeter in a yellow jacket, and three with red jackets. One may be intended to be the
Duke of Alba, the notoriously harsh commander of the Spanish army in the Netherlands: the resemblance becomes clearer in the later paintings by Brueghel the Younger. File:Le massacre des innocents par Pieter Brueghel le Jeune - Bruxelles.jpg|Version in the Oldmasters Museum, Brussels File:Pieter Brueghel the Younger - Massacre of the Innocents - WGA03621.jpg|Version in a private collection File:Pieter Brueghel de Jonge - Een winterlandschap met de moord op de Onnozele.jpg|Another version sold in 2012 ==Bruegel's other snow paintings==