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come, with a black cap on her head, and black shoes on her feet, and a
broomstick in her hand: and presently up she came into the dining-
hall. Now, as she had not been asked to the feast she was very angry,
and scolded the king and queen very much, and set to work to take her
revenge. So she cried out, 'The king's daughter shall, in her
fifteenth year, be wounded by a spindle, and fall down dead.' Then the
twelfth of the friendly fairies, who had not yet given her gift, came
forward, and said that the evil wish must be fulfilled, but that she
could soften its mischief; so her gift was, that the king's daughter,
when the spindle wounded her, should not really die, but should only
fall asleep for a hundred years.

However, the king hoped still to save his dear child altogether from
the threatened evil; so he ordered that all the spindles in the
kingdom should be bought up and burnt. But all the gifts of the first
eleven fairies were in the meantime fulfilled; for the princess was so
beautiful, and well behaved, and good, and wise, that everyone who
knew her loved her.

It happened that, on the very day she was fifteen years old, the king
and queen were not at home, and she was left alone in the palace. So
she roved about by herself, and looked at all the rooms and chambers,
till at last she came to an old tower, to which there was a narrow
staircase ending with a little door. In the door there was a golden
key, and when she turned it the door sprang open, and there sat an old
lady spinning away very busily. 'Why, how now, good mother,' said the
princess; 'what are you doing there?' 'Spinning,' said the old lady,
and nodded her head, humming a tune, while buzz! went the wheel. 'How
prettily that little thing turns round!' said the princess, and took
the spindle and began to try and spin. But scarcely had she touched
it, before the fairy's prophecy was fulfilled; the spindle wounded
her, and she fell down lifeless on the ground.

However, she was not dead, but had only fallen into a deep sleep; and
the king and the queen, who had just come home, and all their court,
fell asleep too; and the horses slept in the stables, and the dogs in
the court, the pigeons on the house-top, and the very flies slept upon
the walls. Even the fire on the hearth left off blazing, and went to
sleep; the jack stopped, and the spit that was turning about with a
goose upon it for the king's dinner stood still; and the cook, who was
at that moment pulling the kitchen-boy by the hair to give him a box
on the ear for something he had done amiss, let him go, and both fell
asleep; the butler, who was slyly tasting the ale, fell asleep with
the jug at his lips: and thus everything stood still, and slept
soundly.

A large hedge of thorns soon grew round the palace, and every year it
became higher and thicker; till at last the old palace was surrounded
and hidden, so that not even the roof or the chimneys could be seen.
But there went a report through all the land of the beautiful sleeping

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