Sleeping Beauty

At a princess's christening, an old fairy, angry at being overlooked, declared that the child would die from a spindle wound. A younger fairy softened the curse: she would sleep for a hundred years instead.

Despite a royal ban on spindles, the growing princess found an old woman spinning in a tower. She tried the spindle, pierced her hand and fell asleep. The good fairy put the palace household to sleep around her. Trees and thorns enclosed the castle.

A hundred years later, a prince heard its story and approached. The wood opened for him. He found the princess and knelt beside her; the appointed time had arrived, and she awoke. The household woke too. That evening the couple married.

The prince kept his marriage secret because his mother came from ogres. He and the princess had two children, Aurora and Day. After his father's death, he became king and publicly brought his family home.

While he was away at war, his mother ordered the cook to serve her first Aurora, then Day, then their mother. He hid them with his wife and substituted animals for the meals.

Hearing the hidden children, the ogress discovered the deception. She ordered the young queen, the children, the cook, his wife and their servant thrown into a tub of poisonous creatures. The king returned unexpectedly. Furious at being thwarted, the ogress threw herself into the tub and was devoured. The king grieved for his mother but found comfort with his surviving wife and children.