AND now came the time for the most important part of the ceremony, when
the fairy godmothers should declare their gifts to the royal child. All
this time the little Princess Briar-Rose had been quietly sleeping in
her cradle in the nursery, watched over by an old servant who had tended
her mother as a child. Now the King gave orders for the baby to be
brought into the banqueting hall. The guests ceased their laughter and
talk, and the musicians laid by their instruments.
So the sleeping child was brought and placed in her mother's arms. How
tenderly she clasped the baby to her breast, bending over it as though
to shield it from all harm. So sweet a sight should have touched the
hardest heart, and indeed there was only one person in the room who
remained unmoved, and that was the spiteful and jealous fairy, who
looked up and bared her yellow teeth in a sneering grin.
"Queen," said she, "your face is pale and your lips tremble. What is it
that you fear on this day of the giving of gifts?"
But the Queen shuddered and was silent.
Then a fairy rose in her place and said--
"I will begin. My gift to the Princess Briar-Rose is the gift of Beauty.
She shall have eyes like stars, and hair as bright as the sunshine of
the spring day on which she was born, and cheeks as fresh and fair as
the petals of the flower from which she takes her name. None shall
surpass her in loveliness."
Then the second fairy rose in her turn and said: "After Beauty, Wit. The
Princess shall be cleverer than any ordinary mortal could ever hope to
be."
"I give her Virtue," said the third. And the Queen nodded her head and
smiled, for though she esteemed beauty and cleverness, she knew that
neither was of any worth without goodness of heart.
[Illustration]
So all the fairies in turn named the gift which they had brought for
Briar-Rose. The fourth said that whatever the Princess put her hand to,
she should do with the most exquisite grace; the fifth, that she should
sing like a nightingale; the sixth that she should dance as lightly as
a fairy, and so on until she had nearly all the virtues and
accomplishments which even a King might desire for his daughter. But as
yet, the spiteful old fairy had not said a word.
[Illustration]
At last she rose and cast an evil glance round.
"Have you all finished?" said she. "Hear, then, my wish. On the day when
she reaches her fifteenth birthday, the Princess shall prick her finger
with the spindle of a spinning-wheel, and shall immediately die!"
This terrible prophecy made the whole company shudder. The Queen gave a
cry and hugged the sleeping baby still closer to her breast.
"No, no! Have pity!" she cried. "Call down your dreadful fate on my head
if you will, but do not harm this innocent child."
At this mournful appeal there was hardly one of the guests who could
keep from tears, but the old crone only mumbled to herself as though she
were uttering a spell. Then the King leapt to his feet, his hand at the
jewelled hilt of the dagger that hung at his girdle. In another moment
he might have stretched the wicked creature lifeless at his feet, but
before he could draw the weapon from its sheath, another voice arrested
him.
"Stay your hand, O King, lest even worse befall. No mortal may strike at
a fairy and go unpunished. And, for the rest, take comfort, for your
daughter shall not die!"
Then the twelfth fairy stepped out from behind the arras where she had
been hidden. "My gift is still to come," she continued. "As far as I
can, I will undo the mischief which my sister has done. It is true that
I have not the power to prevent altogether what she has decreed. The
Princess shall, indeed, prick her finger with the spindle of the
spinning-wheel on the day when she attains her fifteenth year; but
instead of dying she shall fall into a deep sleep; and this sleep shall
last for a hundred years, and when that time is past, a King's son shall
come to waken her."
[Illustration]