Immediately all the fairies vanished.
The king, in the hope of avoiding his daughter’s doom, issued an edict forbidding all persons to spin, and even to have spinning-wheels in their houses, on pain of instant death. But it was in vain. One day, when she was just fifteen years of age, the king and queen left their daughter alone in one of their castles, when, wandering about at her will, she came to an ancient dungeon tower, climbed to the top of it, and there found a very old woman—so old and deaf that she had never heard of the king’s edict—busy with her wheel.
“What are you doing, good old woman?” said the princess.
“I’m spinning, my pretty child.”
“Ah, how charming! Let me try if I can spin also.”
She had no sooner taken up the spindle than, being lively and obstinate, she handled it so awkwardly and carelessly that the point pierced her finger. Though it was so small a wound, she fainted away at once, and dropped silently down on the floor. The poor, frightened old woman called for help; shortly came the ladies in waiting, who tried every means to restore their young mistress, but all their care was useless. She lay, beautiful as an angel, the color still lingering in her lips and cheeks; her fair bosom softly stirred with her breath; only her eyes were fast closed. When the king, her father, and the queen, her mother, beheld her thus, they knew regret was idle—all had happened as the cruel fairy meant. But they also knew that their daughter would not sleep forever, though after one hundred years it was not likely they would either of them behold her awakening. Until that happy hour should arrive, they determined to leave her in repose. They sent away all the physicians and attendants, and themselves sorrowfully laid her upon a bed of embroidery, in the most elegant apartment of the palace. There she slept and looked like a sleeping angel still.
When this misfortune happened, the kindly young fairy who had saved the princess by changing her sleep of death into this sleep of a hundred years was twelve thousand leagues away in the kingdom of Mataquin. But being informed of everything, she arrived speedily in a chariot of fire drawn by dragons. The king was somewhat startled by the sight, but nevertheless went to the door of his palace, and, with a mournful countenance, presented her his hand to descend.
The fairy condoled with his majesty, and approved of all he had done. Then, being a fairy of great common-sense and foresight, she suggested that the princess, awakening after a hundred years in this ancient castle, might be a good deal embarrassed, especially with a young prince by her side, to find herself alone. Accordingly, without asking any one’s leave, she touched with her magic wand the entire population of the palace, except the king and queen—governesses, ladies of honor, waiting-maids, gentlemen ushers, cooks, kitchen-girls, pages, footmen, down to the horses that were in the stables and the grooms that attended them—she touched each and all. Nay, with kind consideration for the feelings of the princess, she even touched the little fat lapdog Puffy, who had laid himself down beside his mistress on her splendid bed. He, like all the rest, fell fast asleep in a moment. The very spits that were before the kitchen fire ceased turning, and the fire itself went out, and everything became as silent as if it were the middle of the night, or as if the palace were a palace of the dead.
The king and queen—having kissed their daughter and wept over her a little, but not much, she looked so sweet and content—departed from the castle, giving orders that it was to be approached no more. The command was unnecessary; for in one quarter of an hour there sprung up around it a wood so thick and thorny that neither beasts nor men could attempt to penetrate there. Above this dense mass of forest could only be perceived the top of the high tower where the lovely princess slept.
A great many changes happen in a hundred years. The king, who never had a second child, died, and his throne passed into another royal family. So entirely was the story of the poor princess forgotten, that when the reigning king’s son, being one day out hunting and stopped in the chase by this formidable wood, inquired what wood it was, and what were those towers which he saw appearing out of the midst of it, no one could answer him. At length an old peasant was found who remembered having heard his grandfather say to his father, that in this tower was a princess, beautiful as the day, who was doomed to sleep there for one hundred years, until awakened by a king’s son, her destined bridegroom.