_____ - -. —r~—--~ -- — -- - The Sleeping Beauty ~v NCE on a time there were a King and a Queen who Q were very sad because they had no children: sad beyond words. But at long aod at last a daughter was born to them, and the kingdom was filled with joy. The King held a great Christening feast, and to it he invited all the Fairies who were in his kingdom at that time — there were seven of them — hoping that each would give the Princess a magic gift, as was the custom of Fairies in those days. 4 beautiful golden casket that held aknife, fork andspoon, ~ At the great feast each Fairy found in her place a ~AJ, AJ/ also of gold, but set with diamonds. But suddenly, as ~ they were all sitting at the table, the door flew openand fç in hobbled a very old Fairy who had not been invited. j\~j~It was fifty years since anyone had seen her, and she had been so silent in her tower in the forest all this time that everyone believed that she must be dead or en- ~A chanted. The King ordered a place to be set for her: but he 54, could not give her a casket of gold like the other Fairies, for only seven had been made. The old Fairy was furious at this, muttering that the King should suffer for insulting her, and the little Princess should receive no better gift than she had done. ‘ Heating this, the youngest of the Fairies slipped quietly away from the table and hid herself behind the curtains near the cradle so as to make sure that she was the last to give her Christening gift to the Princess. Very soon the feast was over and the Fairies crowded round the cradle to give their presents. The gift of the first was that she should be the most beautiful Princess in the world; and the next that she should have the wit of an angel; the third that she should be perfectly graceful in all that she did; the fourth that she should dance divinely; the fifth that she should sing like a nightingale, and the sixth that she should play all musical instruments perfectly. Then it was the old Fairy’s turn, and hobbling for- ward,her head shaking with malice as much as with age, she screeched: ‘Princess, you shall prick your hand with a spindle, and die!’ When they heard this terrible gift, everyone fell a-trembling, and the Queen sod the ladies burst into tears. 112 r But at this moment the youngest Fairy stepped out from behind the curtains and leant over the cradle. ‘Take comfort, dear King and Queen,’ she said in her gentle voice. ‘Tour daughter shall not die. True, I can- not quite undo the Christening curse of a Fairy so much older than myself; but I can make it milder. The Prin- cess shall indeed prick her hand with a spindle; but instead of d) ing, she shall fall asleep for a hundred 4’ years. But at the end of that time a Prince whom I shall choose will come to wake her and to win her hand.’ This comforted thr King and Queen. But nes ertheless they were sorely troubled at the thought of the hundred years’ sleep. So the King made a law that no one in his kingdom, on pain of death, was so use or possess a spindle, nor any part of a spinning-wheel; and all that were there at the time were carried into she market places and burnt in honfirrs. Timr went by, and the Princess grew up as beautiful, and as talented as the Fairies had promised. And, even when she was sixteen years old, she had never seen ntr heard of a spinning-wheel, nor knew how thread was spun. One day, however, when the King and the Queen were away from home, the Princess was exploring the oldest part of the castle where she had never been before. At the top of a dusty, twisty stair she found a little room where an old woman sat spinning all by herself, and had never heard of the King’s law against spindles. ‘Little old woman, what are you doing?’ asked the Princess. i ‘I am sptnntng, my dear child,’ answered the old woman, who had no idea who it was speaking to her, and svas shocked at her ignorance. ‘Oh, what fun it looks!’ cried the Princess. ‘However do you make it work? Do please let me try!’ So the Princess took the spindle from the old woman. But no sooner had she done so than, either through overhastsness or by the magic of the wicked Fairy, she pricked her hand and at once fell to the floor as if dead. The old woman, very surprised at this, tried to rouse she Princess. But finding that she could do nothing, she began shouting for help. Soon people came running from all over the castle; and when they saw the Princess lying on the floor like osse dead, they tried every remedy from cold ssater to precious drugs but all in vain. Presently the King arrived home at the castle; and when he learnt what had happened, he remembered the Christening curse and the promise of the Youngest Fairs. So he ordered the Princess to be carried down saso the finest room in the castle and laid on a bed embroidered with gold and silver. There she lay, beautiful as an ar’gel, with rosy cheeks 113 A and coral lips, breathing softly, so that all could see that she was not dead, but oniy fallen into the magic ~sleep which was to last a hundred years. Meanwhile, the fairy who had saved her life was twelve thousand leagues away in the kingdom of Mata- kin. But a Dwarf in seven-league boots set off at once to tell her what had happened; and she arrived after an hour’s journey in her fiery chariot drawn by dragons. ‘You have done well,’ said the Fairy, when the King showed her the Princess lying in her best robes on the royal bed. ‘But I shall do better. A hundred years from now, when she wakes all alone in this old castle, the Princess will be afraid. So I shall put all within it to sleep likewise—-except you and the Queen, who have the rest of your kingdom to think about.’ So she went through the castle, touching everything and everyone with her wand the soldiers, the cooks, ~ the servants, the maids of honour, the pages, even the horses in the stable, the dogs in the courtyard and even httle Poppet, the Princess’s spaniel, who lay beside her on the bed. All slept under the fairy charm, nor might any of them wake before their mistress, but must all do so when she did, so as to be ready to wait upon her. And the Fairy cast the magic sleep over the whole castle, even down to the fire in the kitchen, with the pheasants and partridges turning on the spits in front of it, and the very smoke comnig out of the chipiney. So the King and Queen kissed their sleeping daughter goodbye, and went away from the Castle, to live at their palace in a great city at the other end of the kingdom. They would have set a guard about the castle, but hardly had they left itbefore the Fairy waved her wand once more, and the trees in the park round it grew thick and tall; brushes and briars and thoms grew between them until only the very tops of the castle towers could be seen—and that only from a long way off. The Sleeping Wood. as it came to be called, was so thick, and the brambles and hawthorns so sharp, that no one could push through them, or come near the castle. In this way the castle remained unvisited for a hun- dredyears, until one day there came aPrince from a near- by country, wandering by himself in quest of adven- tures. He saw the towers peeping out above the tall trees, and stopped to ask what the mysterious castle was which was so well guarded by the dark, fearsome wood all about it. ‘Ah,’ said one man, ‘that is an ancient, ruined castle, haunted by ghosts.’ ‘Not so,’ said another. ‘Witches live there. Or there at least they fly on broomsticks to hold their dreadful sabbaths.’ ‘No, no,’ exclaimed a third. ‘That castle is the home 1\~:1 r r~ -~ of anOgre; and to it he takes any children whom he can catch, so that he can eat them at his leisure. For only he knows the secret spell to open a way through the Sleeping Wood.’ The Prince shuddered when he heard this; for his own mother was the daughter of an Ogre, though the King did not know this when he married her. But at this moment a very aged countryman came up to him andsaid: ‘Noble Prince, it is now fifty years since my father told me the story of the Sleeping Wood, as hr heard it from his father. My grandfather, who would be more than a hundred years old ifhe were alive now, said that in that castle lies the most beautiful Princess in all the world, held in an enchanted sleep. And at the end of a hundred years she is to be woken by the Prince for whom the Fairies intend her.’ The Prince was filled with eagerness at these words.