At this all the guests trembled, and many of them began to weep. The king and queen wept loudest of all.
Just then the wise young fairy came from behind the curtain and said: "Do not grieve, O King and Queen. Your daughter shall not die. I cannot undo what my elder sister has done; the princess shall indeed prick her finger with the spindle, but she shall not die. She shall fall into sleep that will last a hundred years. At the end of that time, a king's son will find her and awaken her."
Immediately all the fairies vanished.
II
The king, hoping to save his child even from this misfortune, commanded that all spindles should be burned. This was done, but it was all in vain.
One day when the princess was seventeen years of age, the king and queen left her alone in the castle. She wandered about the palace and at last came to a little room in the top of a tower. There an old woman—so old and deaf that she had never heard of the king's command—sat spinning.
"What are you doing, good old woman?" asked the princess.
"I am spinning, my pretty child."
"Ah," said the princess. "How do you do it? Let me see if I can spin also."