y condemning her to sleep for a
hundred years, was in the kingdom of Mataquin, some twelve thousand
miles off, when the accident occurred; but, having quickly heard the
news through a little dwarf, who possessed a pair of seven-league boots,
she lost no time in coming to see her royal friends, and presently
arrived at the palace in a fiery chariot drawn by dragons. The king went
to hand her out of the carriage. She approved of all he had done; but,
being extremely prudent, she foresaw that when the princess would come
to wake she would be puzzled what to do on finding herself all alone in
a large palace, and therefore adopted the following expedient. She
touched with her wand all the ladies in waiting, maids of honour,
ladies' maids, gentlemen, officers, stewards, cooks, scullions, running
footmen, guards, porters, pages, valets, in short, every human being in
the palace, except their two majesties; she next went into the stables,
and touched all the horses, with their grooms, the large dogs in the
court-yard, and, lastly, the princess's little lapdog, that lay beside
her on the bed. No sooner had she done so, than one and all fell into a
sound sleep that was to last till their mistress should wake, in order
to be ready to attend her the moment she would require their services.
Even the spits before the fire, that were roasting some savoury
partridges and pheasants, seemed in a manner to fall asleep, as well as
the fire itself. And all this was but the work of a moment, fairies
being never very long doing their spiriting.

[Illustration]

The king and queen, after having kissed their beloved child, without
waking her, left the palace, and published a decree forbidding any one
to approach the spot. But this proved quite a needless precaution, for
in a quarter of an hour's time there sprung up all around the park such
a quantity of trees, both great and small, and so thick a tangle of
briars and brambles, that neither man nor beast could have found means
to pass through them; in short, nothing but the topmost turrets of the
castle could be seen, and these were only discernible at a distance. So
that it seemed the fairy was determined the princess's slumber should
not be disturbed by idle curiosity.

At the end of one hundred years, the son of the king who then reigned
over the land, and who did not belong to the same family as the sleeping
princess, happened to go a hunting one day in that neighbourhood, and,
catching