This terrible sentence fell like a damp upon all the company, and there was no one present but what shed tears. But just then the young fairy came out from behind the tapestry-hangings, and said aloud: “Be comforted, O king and queen: your daughter shall not die of the wound. For although I have not the power to undo completely the mischief worked by an older fairy, and though I cannot prevent the princess from pricking her hand with a spindle, yet, instead of dying, she shall only fall into a sleep, that will last a hundred years, at the end of which a king's son will come and wake her.”
Notwithstanding the fairy's words, the king, in hopes of averting such a misfortune altogether, published an edict forbidding any person to make use of spindles, or even to keep them in their house, under pain of death.
Some fifteen or sixteen years afterwards, it happened that the king and queen went to visit one of their summer palaces; when the young princess, running one morning all over the rooms, in the frolicsome spirits of youth, at length climbed up one of the turrets, and reached a little garret, where she found an old woman busy spinning with a distaff. The poor soul had never even heard of the king's edict, and did not dream that she was committing high treason by using a spindle.
“What are you doing, goody?” cried the princess. “I am spinning, my pretty dear,” replied the old woman, little thinking she was speaking to a princess. “Oh! how amusing it must be,” cried the princess, “I should so like to try! Pray show me how to set about it.” But no sooner had she taken hold of the spindle, than, being somewhat hasty and careless, and likewise because the fairies had ordered it to come to pass, she pricked her hand, and fell down in a dead faint.
The good old woman becoming alarmed, called aloud for help, and a number of attendants flocked round the princess, bathed her temples with water, unlaced her stays, and rubbed the palms of her hands, but all to no purpose. The king, who had come up stairs on hearing the noise they made, now recollected what the fairies had foretold, and seeing there was no help for it, ordered the princess to be laid on a bed, embroidered in gold and silver, in the most magnificent room in the palace. She looked as lovely as an angel, while thus lying in state, though not dead, for the roses of her complexion and the coral of her lips were unimpaired; and though her eyes remained closed, her gentle breathing showed she was only slumbering. The king ordered her to be left quite quiet, until the time should come when she was to awake. The good fairy who had saved her life, by condemning her to sleep for a hundred years, was in the kingdom of Mataquin, some twelve thousand miles off, when the accident occurred; but, having quickly heard the news through a little dwarf, who possessed a pair of seven-league boots, she lost no time in coming to see her royal friends, and presently arrived at the palace in a fiery chariot drawn by dragons. The king went to hand her out of the carriage. She approved of all he had done; but, being extremely prudent, she foresaw that when the princess would come to wake she would be puzzled what to do on finding herself all alone in a large palace, and therefore adopted the following expedient. She touched with her wand all the ladies in waiting, maids of honour, ladies' maids, gentlemen, officers, stewards, cooks, scullions, running footmen, guards, porters, pages, valets, in short, every human being in the palace, except their two majesties; she next went into the stables, and touched all the horses, with their grooms, the large dogs in the court-yard, and, lastly, the princess's little lapdog, that lay beside her on the bed. No sooner had she done so, than one and all fell into a sound sleep that was to last till their mistress should wake, in order to be ready to attend her the moment she would require their services. Even the spits before the fire, that were roasting some savoury partridges and pheasants, seemed in a manner to fall asleep, as well as the fire itself. And all this was but the work of a moment, fairies being never very long doing their spiriting.
The king and queen, after having kissed their beloved child, without waking her, left the palace, and published a decree forbidding any one to approach the spot. But this proved quite a needless precaution, for in a quarter of an hour's time there sprung up all around the park such a quantity of trees, both great and small, and so thick a tangle of briars and brambles, that neither man nor beast could have found means to pass through them; in short, nothing but the topmost turrets of the castle could be seen, and these were only discernible at a distance. So that it seemed the fairy was determined the princess's slumber should not be disturbed by idle curiosity.
At the end of one hundred years, the son of the king who then reigned over the land, and who did not belong to the same family as the sleeping princess, happened to go a hunting one day in that neighbourhood, and, catching a glimpse of the turrets peeping above a thick wood, inquired what building it was that he saw. Every one answered according to what they had heard. Some said it was an old castle, that was haunted; others, that it was a place of meeting for all the witches in the land; while the most prevailing opinion was, that it belonged to an ogre, who was in the habit of stealing little children, and carrying them home to eat them unmolested, and nobody could follow him, since he alone had the power of penetrating through the thicket. The prince did not know what to make of all these different accounts, when an old peasant said to him: “Please your royal highness, it is now above fifty years since I heard my father tell that the most beautiful princess ever seen was concealed in this palace, where she was condemned to sleep for a hundred years, at the end of which she was to be awakened by a king's son, whose bride she was destined to become.”