Sleeping Beauty

Part One · The Thirteenth Fairy

Long ago, a king and queen wished every day for a child, but year after year no baby came. Then one day, while the queen was bathing in a pond, a frog crawled out of the water. "Your wish will come true," it croaked. "Before a year has passed, you will have a daughter." And just as the frog had said, the queen soon had a baby girl. She was so lovely that the king could hardly stop smiling.

The king planned a magnificent feast to celebrate. He invited all his relatives and friends, and he also invited the fairies of the kingdom, so that they would be kind and generous to his daughter. There were thirteen fairies in the land. But the king had only twelve golden plates for them to eat from, so one of the fairies had to be left out, and she was not invited.

The feast was splendid, and at the end of it the fairies gave the baby their magic gifts. The first gave her goodness, the second gave her beauty, the third gave her riches, and so on, until she had everything a person could wish for. Eleven fairies had spoken when suddenly the doors burst open, and in swept the thirteenth fairy, dressed all in black and furious that she had not been invited.

Without greeting anyone or even looking at them, she cried out in a loud voice. "When the princess is fifteen years old, she will prick her finger on a spindle and die!" Then she turned and stormed out of the hall, and the doors slammed behind her. Everyone was horrified. But the twelfth fairy had not yet given her gift. She could not undo the wicked spell, but she could make it gentler.

"The princess will not die," said the twelfth fairy softly. "She will only fall into a deep sleep that will last a hundred years." The king still wanted to protect his daughter from even that, so he ordered that every spindle in the whole kingdom must be burned. Soon there was not a single spinning wheel left anywhere, and the people had to buy their thread from merchants who came from far away.

Part Two · The Spindle

As the princess grew up, all the fairies' gifts came true. She was so beautiful, kind and clever that everyone who met her loved her. The people called her Briar Rose. On the very day she turned fifteen, the king and queen happened to be away from home, and the princess was left alone in the castle. So she went exploring all by herself, peeking into rooms she had never seen before.

At last she came to an old stone tower in a forgotten corner of the castle. She climbed its narrow winding staircase and found a little door at the top with a rusty key in the lock. When she turned the key, the door sprang open. Inside sat an old woman with a spinning wheel, busily spinning flax into thread. She had lived up there for so long that she had never even heard of the king's order.

"Good day, Granny," said the princess. "What are you doing?" "I am spinning," said the old woman, nodding. "And what is that thing that whirls around so merrily?" asked the princess, because she had never seen a spindle before. She reached out to try it herself, and the very moment she touched it, the sharp point pricked her finger. After fifteen long years, the wicked fairy's spell had come true.

The princess sank onto a bed in the corner and fell into a deep sleep. And at that moment, sleep spread through the whole castle. The king and queen, who had just come home, fell asleep in the great hall. The horses slept in the stables, the dogs in the yard and the pigeons on the roof. Even the flies on the wall fell asleep, and the fire in the kitchen stopped flickering.

The cook had been about to pull the kitchen boy's hair for something he had done wrong, but he fell asleep with his hand in the air. The wind stopped blowing, and not a single leaf moved on the trees. Then, all around the castle, a hedge of thorns began to grow. Every year it grew higher and thicker, until it covered the whole castle, right up to the flag on the roof.

Part Three · The Hedge of Thorns

Soon nothing could be seen of the castle at all. But the story of the beautiful sleeping princess, Briar Rose, spread across the land. Now and then a king's son came and tried to push his way through the hedge. But the thorns held on tight, as if they had hands, and the young men got hopelessly tangled. Every one of them had to give up and limp sadly home, scratched and tired.

Many, many years later, a prince came to that country and heard an old man talking about the hedge. "My grandfather told me there is a castle behind those thorns," said the old man, "with a princess who has been asleep for a hundred years. Many princes have tried to reach her, and every one of them has failed." "I am not afraid," said the prince. "I want to see her."

The old man begged him not to go. But the prince would not listen. Now, on that very day, the hundred years came to an end. When the prince walked up to the hedge, the thorns turned into big, beautiful flowers. They opened to let him through, and they closed again behind him. Inside, he found the horses and the dogs asleep, and the pigeons on the roof with their heads tucked under their wings.

In the kitchen, the cook still had his hand raised over the kitchen boy, and the maid sat with a black hen she was about to pluck. In the great hall, the king and queen were snoring on their thrones, and all the lords and ladies were snoring around them. The prince walked on, through room after silent room, until he came to the tower. He climbed the stairs, opened the little door and found Briar Rose asleep.

She was so lovely that he could not take his eyes off her. He knelt down beside her, and at that very moment, because the hundred years were over, Briar Rose opened her eyes and smiled at him. "Is it you, my prince?" she said. "I have waited such a long time." Then, hand in hand, they walked down the winding stairs together. Everywhere they went, the sleeping castle woke up around them.

The king and queen woke up and rubbed their eyes. The horses stood up and shook themselves, the dogs jumped and wagged their tails, and the pigeons flew off into the fields. The flies on the wall began to crawl again, and the fire in the kitchen flickered up and cooked the dinner. And the cook finally pulled the kitchen boy's hair, just as he had meant to a hundred years before, so that the boy yelled out loud.

Then the wedding of the prince and Briar Rose was held with great splendor, and they lived happily together for the rest of their lives. As for the thirteenth fairy, nobody in the kingdom ever saw her again. The hundred years had passed, and her spell had come to nothing. And people say that in that kingdom, everyone has been very careful to invite everybody to their parties ever since.