Sleeping Beauty
Brothers Grimm · faithful family retelling
A king and queen longed for a child. When a daughter was born, they invited twelve wise women to the christening, but not the thirteenth, because they owned only twelve golden plates.
The wise women gave the child gifts—virtue, beauty, riches, grace, and all that could be wished. Before the twelfth had spoken, the uninvited thirteenth entered. “In her fifteenth year, the princess shall prick herself on a spindle and fall dead.” Then she vanished.
The twelfth could not undo the curse, but softened it: “She shall not die. She and the castle will sleep for a hundred years.” The king ordered every spindle in the kingdom burned.
On her fifteenth birthday the princess explored an old tower. In a locked room she found an old woman spinning. She touched the spindle, pricked her finger, and fell upon the bed. At once the king, queen, court, horses, dogs, pigeons, cooks, and even the fire fell asleep. A thorn hedge grew around the castle, higher every year.
Princes tried to force their way through and were caught in the thorns. A hundred years passed. Then another prince heard the story. Though warned, he approached. That very day the hundred years ended; the thorns became flowers and opened a path.
He crossed rooms of sleeping people until he found the princess. Struck by her beauty, he kissed her. She opened her eyes, and all the castle woke: horses stood, dogs barked, fire burned, and the cook finished the blow he had begun a century before. The princess and prince were married, and the old curse had no power over them again.