"Be
comforted, O king and queen: your daughter shall not die of the wound.
For although I have not the power to undo completely the mischief worked
by an older fairy, and though I cannot prevent the princess from
pricking her hand with a spindle, yet, instead of dying, she shall only
fall into a sleep, that will last a hundred years, at the end of which a
king's son will come and wake her."

Notwithstanding the fairy's words, the king, in hopes of averting such a
misfortune altogether, published an edict forbidding any person to make
use of spindles, or even to keep them in their house, under pain of
death.

Some fifteen or sixteen years afterwards, it happened that the king and
queen went to visit one of their summer palaces; when the young
princess, running one morning all over the rooms, in the frolicsome
spirits of youth, at length climbed up one of the turrets, and reached a
little garret, where she found an old woman busy spinning with a
distaff. The poor soul had never even heard of the king's edict, and did
not dream that she was committing high treason by using a spindle.

"What are you doing, goody?" cried the princess. "I am spinning, my
pretty dear," replied the old woman, little thinking she was speaking to
a princess. "Oh! how amusing it must be," cried the princess, "I should
so like to try! Pray show me how to set about it." But no sooner had she
taken hold of the spindle, than, being somewhat hasty and careless, and
likewise because the fairies had ordered it to come to pass, she pricked
her hand, and fell down in a dead faint.

[Illustration]

The good old woman becoming alarmed, called aloud for help, and a
number of attendants flocked round the princess, bathed her temples with
water, unlaced her stays, and rubbed the palms of her hands, but all to
no purpose. The king, who had come up stairs on hearing the noise they
made, now recollected what the fairies had foretold, and seeing there
was no help for it, ordered the princess to be laid on a bed,
embroidered in gold and silver, in the most magnificent room in the
palace. She looked as lovely as an angel, while thus lying in state,
though not dead, for the roses of her complexion and the coral of her
lips were unimpaired; and though her eyes remained closed, her gentle
breathing showed she was only slumbering. The king ordered her to be
left quite quiet, until the time should come when she was to awake. The
good fairy who had saved her life, b