La Belle au bois dormant

Sleeping Beauty

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A king and queen at last have a daughter; seven fairies are her godmothers and each gives her a gift at the feast, but an old fairy nobody invited, angry that she has no gold case like the others, says the princess will pierce her hand on a spindle and die. A young fairy, hidden behind the tapestry, softens it: she will sleep a hundred years and a king's son will wake her. The king forbids spindles, but at fifteen or sixteen the princess finds an old woman spinning at the top of a keep, takes the spindle, pricks her hand and falls asleep. The good fairy comes in a chariot of fire drawn by dragons and puts the whole castle to sleep with her, and a wood of trees, brambles and thorns grows round it. A hundred years later a prince out hunting hears of the sleeping princess from an old peasant; the wood opens for him alone; he passes the sleeping guards and lords, finds her, kneels, and she wakes. They are married that night. For two years he visits her in secret and they have two children, Aurore and Jour, for his mother is of the race of ogres. When his father dies he brings his wife and children to the capital; then he goes to war and leaves the kingdom to his mother. She sends them to a house in the woods and orders her steward to serve her little Aurore, then Jour, then the young queen; each time he hides them with his wife and serves her a lamb, a kid and a doe. One evening she hears their voices, and orders a great tub filled with toads, vipers and snakes for them all; the king rides in just in time, and the ogress throws herself into the tub and is devoured. The king is sorry, for she was his mother, but soon finds comfort with his wife and children.

Retold from Histoires ou Contes du temps passé (Claude Barbin, Paris 1697): La Belle au bois dormant by Charles Perrault (public domain).