“I’m the princess,” screamed the maiden in her ear, but the spinner only shook her head—she could hear nothing.
Then the princess pointed to the spindle on which the flax was twirling into thread, and made the old woman understand that she wanted to try if she could work it. The spinner nodded and laughed and got up from her seat, and the princess sat down at the wheel, but she had hardly begun to spin when she pricked her finger with the spindle. Immediately a faintness seized her. She staggered to a bed close by, and as soon as her head touched the pillow she became unconscious.
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY
At the same moment there was a deep silence everywhere in the castle. The little bird that just before had been singing so sweetly on the windowsill hushed its song. The distant hum of voices from the courtyard beneath was stilled. Even the old woman, who had been standing beside her wheel telling the princess how to spin, stopped short and fell asleep. In the great hall, the king and queen, who had just returned, and were inquiring for their daughter, fell asleep before the lady-in-waiting could answer them, and the lady herself began to snore. The guards slumbered at their posts. The horses in their stalls became motionless, and so did the dogs in the yard, the pigeons on the roof, and the flies on the wall. The fire on the hearth stopped burning, and the meat on the spit ceased roasting. In short, sleep fell on the whole castle, and round about it there sprung up a thick and thorny magic wood which it seemed impossible for anyone to penetrate, and which hid the entire castle from view except a weather-vane on the roof.
Time went on until a hundred years had passed, and then one day a king’s son happened to be hunting in the region. He became separated from his attendants in the excitement of the chase, and at length he came to a woodcutter’s cottage and dismounted to ask the way. The old man who lived in the hut gave him the required directions, and then told the prince about a thick wood a little farther on in the direction he had been riding. “No one has ever been able to get through that wood,” said the old man, “and my grandfather used to say it surrounded a castle in which was a beautiful princess condemned to sleep for a hundred years. He said some prince would come and awaken her with a kiss.”
On hearing this, nothing would do but the prince must go and have a look at the wood. He found it, and dismounted and prepared to push his way through the thorny thicket. But no sooner did he start to penetrate the wood than the tangled briars of the undergrowth were changed into beautiful flowers which parted and bent aside to let him pass. When he reached the courtyard he saw the dogs lying asleep, and on the roof the pigeons were sitting with their heads under their wings. He went indoors, and there were the flies asleep on the wall, and there was the cook with his hand uplifted to strike the kitchen boy, and a maid sitting near by had a fowl on her lap ready to pluck. When the prince entered the great hall he found the whole court asleep, and the king and queen slumbering on their thrones. Everything was so still he could hear his own breathing.
As yet he saw no princess, and he continued looking about till he came to the old tower and ascended the narrow, winding stair. He went into the little room where the princess lay, and she looked so lovely in her sleep that he could not turn away his eyes, and presently he stooped and kissed her. At once she awoke and said: “O prince, are you here at last? I have had such pleasant dreams!”
She sat up laughing and rubbing her eyes, and after a few moments stood on her feet, and they went hand in hand out of the room. The old woman stared at them in amazement, and then, mumbling to herself, resumed her spinning. They descended the stairs and passed along the corridors until they came to the throne room. The king and queen and whole court had just waked up and were gazing at each other with wonderment. The long sleep was ended for the rest of the palace also. Roosters crowed, dogs barked, the cats began to mew, the clocks struck the hours, the heralds blew their trumpets, the pigeons flew away from the roof to the fields, the kitchen fire blazed up, and the meat was again roasting, the cook gave the kitchen boy such a box on the ear that he roared lustily, and the maid began to pluck the fowl.
In short, everything went on as if there had been no enchantment at all. To be sure, the dress the princess was wearing was such as the prince’s great-grandmother might have worn, but that gave them something to laugh at.