The King handed her out of the chariot, and she approved everything
he had done, but as she had very great foresight, she thought when the
Princess should awake she might not know what to do with herself, being
all alone in this old palace; and this was what she did: she
touched with her wand everything in the palace (except the King
and Queen)--governesses, maids of honor, ladies of the bedchamber,
gentlemen, officers, stewards, cooks, undercooks, scullions, guards,
with their beefeaters, pages, footmen; she likewise touched all the
horses which were in the stables, pads as well as others, the great dogs
in the outward court and pretty little Mopsey too, the Princess’s little
spaniel, which lay by her on the bed.
Immediately upon her touching them they all fell asleep, that they might
not awake before their mistress and that they might be ready to wait
upon her when she wanted them. The very spits at the fire, as full as
they could hold of partridges and pheasants, did fall asleep also. All
this was done in a moment. Fairies are not long in doing their business.
And now the King and the Queen, having kissed their dear child without
waking her, went out of the palace and put forth a proclamation that
nobody should dare to come near it.
This, however, was not necessary, for in a quarter of an hour’s time
there grew up all round about the park such a vast number of trees,
great and small, bushes and brambles, twining one within another, that
neither man nor beast could pass through; so that nothing could be seen
but the very top of the towers of the palace; and that, too, not unless
it was a good way off. Nobody; doubted but the Fairy gave herein a very
extraordinary sample of her art, that the Princess, while she continued
sleeping, might have nothing to fear from any curious people.
When a hundred years were gone and passed the son of the King then
reigning, and who was of another family from that of the sleeping
Princess, being gone a-hunting on that side of the country, asked:
What those towers were which he saw in the middle of a great thick wood?
Everyone answered according as they had heard. Some said:
That it was a ruinous old castle, haunted by spirits.
Others, That all the sorcerers and witches of the country kept there
their sabbath or night’s meeting.
The common opinion was: That an ogre lived there, and that he carried
thither all the little children he could catch, that he might eat them
up at his leisure, without anybody being able to follow him, as having
himself only the power to pass through the wood.
The Prince was at a stand, not knowing what to believe, when a very good
countryman spake to him thus:
“May it please your royal highness, it is now about fifty years since I
heard from my father, who heard my grandfather say, that there was then
in this castle a princess, the most beautiful was ever seen; that she
must sleep there a hundred years, and should be waked by a king’s son,
for whom she was reserved.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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