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.
II. THE BEAUTY WAKES
After a few years the king and the queen died. They had no other child, and the kingdom passed into the hands of a distant family. A hundred years went by. The son of the king who was then reigning was out hunting one day, when he noticed the tower of a castle in the distance. He asked what castle it was.
All manner of answers were given to him. One said It was a fairy castle; another said that a great monster lived there. At last an old man said:—
“Prince, more than fifty years ago I heard my father say that there was in that castle the most beautiful princess ever seen. She was to sleep for a hundred years, and was to be waked at last by the king’s son, who was to marry her.”