|Once upon a time there lived a king and queen who grieved that they had
no child. But at last a daughter was born, and the king was very happy.
He gave a great feast, and asked to it all the fairies in the land,
seven in all. He hoped that each would give the child a gift.
In front of each fairy at the table was set a heavy gold plate, and by
each plate a gold knife and fork. Just as they sat down to the feast, in
came an old fairy who had not been invited. No one knew she was living.
Fifty years before she had shut herself up in a tower, and had not been
seen since.
The king hurried off to find a gold plate and knife and fork for her
also. But nothing could be found so fine as the seven plates which had
been made for the seven fairies. The old fairy thought herself ill-used
and grumbled in a low voice. At that, one of the young fairies feared
she meant mischief to the child, and so, when the feast was over, hid
herself behind the hangings in the hall. We shall soon see why she did
this.
The fairies now began to give gifts to the child, beginning with the
youngest. She gave her beauty; the next gave her wit; the third gave her
grace; the fourth said she should dance perfectly; the fifth gave her a
voice to sing; the sixth said she should play beautifully on the harp.
The turn of the old fairy had now come. She shook her head wickedly and
said the child would grow up, but when she was grown, she would pierce
her hand, when spinning, and die of the wound. At this, all the company
began to weep. But the fairy who had hidden came forward and said:--
“Be of good cheer, king and queen. Your daughter shall not so die. I
cannot entirely undo what my elder has done. The princess must pierce
her hand when spinning, but instead of dying she shall fall into a deep
sleep. The sleep shall last a hundred years. At the end of that time a
king’s son will come to wake her.”
The king was very sad, but he hoped he might prevent the evil. So he
made a law that no one in the kingdom should spin or have a spinning
wheel in the house, under pain of instant death.
All went well for fifteen years. Then it chanced that the princess was
with the king and queen in one of their castles, and was spying about
for herself. She came to a little chamber at the top of a tower, and
there sat an honest old woman spinning. She was very old and deaf, and
had never heard of the king’s command.
“What are you doing?” asked the princess.
“I’m spinning, my pretty child.”
“How charming it is!” said the princess. “How do you do it? Let me try
if I can spin.” She seized the spindle, but she was hasty and careless,
and pierced her hand with its point. She fainted, and the old woman, in
great alarm, ran for help. People came running from all sides, but they
could not rouse her.
The king heard the noise and came also. Then he saw that the cruel fairy
had had her wish. His daughter would not wake for a hundred years. He
laid her on the bed in the best room, and stood sadly looking upon
her. She was asleep. He could hear her breathe. Her cheeks were full of
color, but her eyes were closed.
Now the good fairy, who had said the princess should wake in a hundred
years, was thousands of miles away at the time. But she knew of it, and
came at once in a chariot of fire drawn by dragons. The king came to
meet her, his eyes red with weeping.
The good fairy was very wise and saw that the princess would not know
what to do if she awoke all alone in the castle, in a hundred years. So
this is what she did.
She touched with her wand every one in the castle except the king and
the queen. She touched the maids of honor, the gentlemen, the officers,
the stewards, cooks, boys, guards, porters, pages, footmen. She
touched the horses in the stable, the grooms, the great mastiff in the
court-yard, and the tiny lapdog of the princess that was on the bed
beside her.
The moment she touched them, they all fell asleep just as they were, not
to wake again until the time came for their mistress to do so. Then they
all would be ready to wait on her. Even the fire went to sleep, and the
roasting-spit before the fire with its fowls ready for roasting.
It was the work of a moment. The king and queen kissed their daughter
good-by and left the castle. The king sent forth a command that no one
was to go near the castle. That was needless. In a quarter of an hour,
a wood had grown about it so thick and thorny that nothing could get
through it. The castle-top itself could only be seen from afar.