Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
(1863–1944). The Sleeping Beauty and other Fairy Tales. 1910.
The
Sleeping Beauty
ONCE upon a time there
lived a King and a Queen, who lacked but one thing on earth to make them
entirely happy. The King was young, handsome, and wealthy; the Queen
had a nature as good and gentle as her face was beautiful; and they adored one
another, having married for love—which among kings and queens is not always the
rule. Moreover, they reigned over a kingdom at peace, and their people were
devoted to them. What more, then, could they possibly want?
Well, they wanted one thing very badly, and the
lack of it grieved them more than words can tell. They had no child. Vows,
pilgrimages, all ways were tried; yet for a long while nothing came of it all,
and the poor Queen especially was in despair
At last, however, to her
own and her husband’s inexpressible joy, she give birth to a daughter. As soon
as the palace guns announced this event, the whole nation went wild with
delight. Flags waved everywhere, bells were set pealing until the steeples
rocked, crowds tossed up their hats and cheered, while the soldiers presented
arms, and even strangers meeting in the street fell upon each other’s neck,
exclaiming: “Our Queen has a daughter! Yes, yes—Our Queen has a
daughter! Long live the little Princess!”
A name had now to be
found for the royal babe; and the King and Queen, after talking
over some scores of names, at length decided to call her Aurora
After the ceremonies of
the christening, while the trumpeters sounded their fanfares and the guns
boomed out again from the great tower, all the company returned to the Royal Palace
“I am the Fairy Uglyane!
Pray where are your King’s manners, that I have not been invited?”
She had in fact been
overlooked; and this was not surprising, because she lived at the far end of
the country, in a lonely tower set around by the forest. For fifty years she
had never come out of this tower and every one believed her to be dead or
enchanted. That, you must know, is the commonest way the Fairies have of
ending: they lock themselves up in a tower or within a hollow oak, and are
never seen again.
The King, though
she chose to accuse his manners, was in fact the politest of men. He hurried to
express his regrets, led her to table with his own hand, and ordered a dish to
be set for her; but with the best will in the world he could not give her a
dish-cover such as the others had, because seven only had been made for the
seven invited Fairies. The old crone received his excuses very ungraciously,
while accepting a seat. It was plain that she had taken deep offence. One of
the younger Fairies, Hippolyta by name, who sat by, overheard her mumbling
threats between her teeth; and fearing she might bestow some unlucky gift upon
the little Princess, went as soon as she rose from table and hid herself
close by the cradle, behind the tapestry, that she might have the last word and
undo, so far as she could, what evil the Fairy Uglyane might have in her
mind.
She had scarcely
concealed herself before the other Fairies began to advance, one by one, to
bestow their gifts on the Princess. The youngest promised her that she
should be the most beautiful creature in the world; the next, that she should
have the wit of an angel; the third, a marvellous grace in all her ways; the
fourth, that she should dance to perfection; the fifth, that she should sing
like a nightingale; the sixth, that she should play exquisitely on all instruments
of music.
Now came the turn of the
old Fairy Uglyane. Her head nodded with spite and old age together, as
she bent over the cradle and shook her crutched staff above the head of the
pretty babe, who slept on sweetly, too young and too innocent as yet to dream
of any such thing as mischief in this world.
“This is my gift to you,
Princess Aurora,” announced the hag, still in her creaking voice that
shook as spitefully as her body. “I promise that one day you shall pierce your
hand with a spindle, and on that day you shall surely die!”
At these terrible words
the poor Queen fell back fainting into her husband’s arms. A trembling
seized the whole Court; the ladies were in tears, and the younger lords and
knights were calling out to seize and burn the wicked witch, when the young
Fairy stepped forth from behind the tapestry, and passing by Uglyane,
who stood scornful in the midst of this outcry, she thus addressed their
Majesties:—
“Take comfort, O King
and Queen: your daughter shall not die thus. It is true, I have not the
power wholly to undo what this elder sister of mine has done. The Princess
must indeed pierce her hand with a spindle; but, instead of dying, she shall
only fall into a deep slumber that shall last for many, many years, at the end
of which a King’s son shall come and awake her. Whenever this misfortune
happens to your little Aurora
The King, while
declaring himself infinitely obliged to the good Fairy Hippolyta, could
not help feeling that hers was but cold comfort at the best. He gave orders to
close the christening festivities at once, although the Fairy Uglyane,
their spoil-joy, had already taken her departure; passing unharmed through the
crowd of folk, every one of whom wished her ill, and riding away—it was
generally agreed—upon a broomstick.
To satisfy the King’s
faithful subjects, however,—who were unaware of any misadventure—the palace
fireworks were duly let off, with a grand set-piece wishing Long Life to the
Princess Aurora! in all the colours of the rainbow. But His Majesty, after
bowing from the balcony amid the banging of rockets and hissing of Catherine
wheels, retired to a private room with his Chamberlain, and there, still amid
the noise of explosions and cheering, drew up the first harsh proclamation of
his reign. It forbade every one, on pain of death, to use a spindle in spinning
or even to have a spindle in his house. Heralds took copies of this
proclamation and marched through the land reading it, to the sound of trumpets
from every market-place: and it gravely puzzled and distressed all who
listened, for their women folk prided themselves on their linen. Its fineness
was a byword throughout the neighbouring kingdoms, and they knew themselves to
be famous for it. “But what sort of linen,” said they, “would His Majesty have
us spin without spindles?”
They had a great
affection, however (as we have seen), for their monarch; and for fifteen or sixteen
years all the spinning-wheels were silent throughout the land. The little Princess
Aurora grew up without ever having seen one. But one day—the King
and Queen being absent at one of their country houses—she gave her
governess the slip, and running at will through the palace and upstairs from
one chamber to another, she came at length to a turret with a winding
staircase, from the top of which a strange whirring sound attracted her and
seemed to invite her to climb. As she mounted after the sound, on a sudden it
ceased; but still she followed the stairs and came, at the very top, to an open
door through which she looked in upon a small garret where sat an honest old
woman alone, winding her distaff. The good soul had never, in sixteen years,
heard of the King’s prohibition against spindles; and this is just the
sort of thing that happens in palaces.
“What are you doing,
goody?” asked the Princess.
“I am spinning, pretty
one,” answered the old woman, who did not know who she was.
“Spinning? What is that?”
“I wonder sometimes,”
said the old woman, “what the world is coming to, in these days!” And that, of
course, was natural enough, and might occur to anybody after living so long as
she had lived in a garret on the top of a tower. “Spinning,” she said wisely,
“is spinning, or was; and, gentle or simple, no one is fit to keep house until
she has learnt to spin.”
“But how pretty it is!”
said the Princess. “How do you do it? Give it to me and let me see if I
can do so well.”
She had no sooner
grasped the spindle—she was over-eager perhaps, or just a little bit clumsy, or
maybe the fairy decree had so ordained it—than it pierced her hand and she
dropped down in a swoon.
The old trot in a flurry
ran to the head of the stairs and called for help. There was no bell rope, and,
her voice being weak with age and her turret in the remotest corner of the
palace, it was long before any one heard her in the servants’ hall. The
servants, too—in the absence of the King and Queen—were playing
cards, and could not be interrupted by anybody until their game was finished.
Then they sat down and discussed whose business it was to attend on a call from
that particular turret; and this again proved to be a nice point, since nobody
could remember having been summoned thither, and all were against setting up a
precedent (as they called it). In the end they decided to send up the lowest of
the junior page-boys. But he had a weakness which he somehow forgot to
mention—that of fainting at the sight of blood. So when he reached the garret
and fainted, the old woman had to begin screaming over again.
This time they sent up a
scullery maid; who, being good-natured and unused to the ways of the palace,
made the best haste she could to the garret, whence presently she returned with
the terrible news. The servants, who had gone back to their game, now dropped
their cards and came running. All the household, in fact, came pouring up the
turret stairs; the palace physicians themselves crowding in such numbers that
the poor Princess Aurora would have been hard put to it for fresh air
could fresh air have restored her. They dashed water on her face, unlaced her,
slapped her hands, tickled the soles of her feet, burned feathers under her
nose, rubbed her temples with Hungary-water. They held consultations over her,
by twos and threes, and again in Grand Committee. But nothing would bring her
to.
Meanwhile, a messenger
had ridden off posthaste with the tidings, and while the doctors were still
consulting and shaking their heads the King himself came galloping home
to the palace. In the midst of his grief he bethought him of what the Fairies
had foretold; and being persuaded that, since they had said it, this was fated
to happen, he blamed no one but gave orders to carry the Princess to the
finest apartment in the palace, and there lay her on a bed embroidered with
gold and silver.
At sight of her, she was
so lovely, you might well have supposed that some bright being of the skies had
floated down to earth and there dropped asleep after her long journey. For her
swoon had not taken away the warm tints of her complexion: her cheeks were like
carnations, her lips like coral: and though her eyes were closed and the long
lashes would not lift, her soft breathing told that she was not dead. The King
commanded them all to leave her and let her sleep in peace until the hour of
her awakening should arrive.
Now when the accident
befell our Princess the good Fairy Hippolyta, who had saved her
life, happened to be in the Kingdom of Mataquin, twelve thousand leagues away;
but news of it was brought to her in an incredibly short space of time by a
little dwarf who owned a pair of seven-league boots. (These were boots in which
you could walk seven leagues at a single stride.) She set off at once to the
help of her beloved goddaughter, and behold in an hour this good Fairy arrived
at the palace, in a fiery chariot drawn by dragons.
Our King met her
and handed her down from the chariot. She approved of all that he had done;
but, greatly foreseeing as she was, she bethought her that, as all mortals
perish within a hundred years or so, when the time came for the Princess
to awake she would be distressed at finding herself orphaned and alone in this
old castle.
So this is what she did.
She touched with her wand everything and everybody in the palace: the King,
the Queen; the ministers and privy councillors; the archbishop (who was
the Grand Almoner), the bishops and the minor clergy; the maids-of-honour,
ladies of the bedchamber, governesses, gentlemen-in-waiting, equerries,
heralds, physicians, officers, masters of the household, cooks, scullions,
lackeys, guards, Switzers, pages, footmen. She touched the Princess’s
tutors and the Court professors in the midst of their deep studies. She touched
likewise all the horses in the stables, with the grooms; the huge mastiffs in
the yard; even Tiny, the Princess’s little pet dog, and Fluff,
her black-and-white cat, that lay coiled on a cushion by her bedside.
The instant the Fairy Hippolyta
touched them they all fell asleep, not to awake until the same moment as their
mistress, that all might be ready to wait on her when she needed them. The very
spits at the fire went to sleep, loaded as they were with partridges and
pheasants; and the fire went to sleep too. All this was done in a moment: the
Fairies were never long about their business in those days.
But, it so was happened
that one of the King’s councillors, the Minister of Marine (his office
dated from a previous reign when the kingdom had hoped to conquer and acquire a
seaboard) had overslept himself that morning and came late to the palace
without any knowledge of what had befallen. He felt no great fear that his
unpunctuality would be remarked, the King (as he supposed) being absent
in the country; nevertheless he took the precaution of letting himself in by a
small postern door and so missed being observed by the Fairy and touched by her
wand. Entering his office, and perceiving that his under-secretary (usually so
brisk) and all his clerks rested their heads on their desks in attitudes of
sleep, he drew the conclusion that something had happened, for he was an
excellent judge of natural slumber. The farther he penetrated into the palace,
the stronger his suspicions became. He withdrew on tiptoe. Though by nature and
habit a lazy man, he was capable of sudden decision, and returning to his home
he caused notices to be posted up, forbidding any one to approach the castle,
the inmates of which were suffering from an Eastern but temporary affliction
known as the Sleeping Sickness.
These notices were
unnecessary, for within a few hours there grew up, all around the park, such a
number of trees of all sizes, and such a tangle of briars and undergrowth, that
neither beast nor man could find a passage. They grew until nothing but the
tops of the castle towers could be seen, and these only from a good way off.
There was no mistake about it: the Fairy had done her work well, and the Princess
might sleep with no fear of visits from the inquisitive.
One day, many, many
years afterwards, the incomparable young Prince Florimond happened to
ride a-hunting on that side of the country which lay next to the tangled
forest, and asked: “What were those towers he saw pushing up above the midst of
a great thick wood?”
They all answered him as
they heard tell. Some said it was an old castle haunted by ghosts.
Others that, all the
wizards and witches of the country met there to keep Sabbath.
The most general opinion
was that an Ogre dwelt there, and that he carried off thither all the children
he could catch, to eat them at his ease. No one could follow him, for he alone
knew how to find a passage through the briars and brambles. The Prince
could not tell which to believe of all these informants, for all gave their
versions with equal confidence, as commonly happens with those who talk on
matters of which they can know nothing for certain. He was turning from one to
another in perplexity, when a peasant spoke up and said:—
“Your Highness, long ago
I heard my father tell that there was in yonder castle a Princess, the most
beautiful that ever man saw; that she must lie asleep there for many, many
years; and that one day she will be awakened by a King’s son, for whom she was
destined.”
At these words Prince
Florimond felt himself a-fire. He believed, without weighing it, that he
could accomplish this fine adventure; and spurred on by love and ambition, he
resolved to explore then and there and discover the truth for himself.
Leaping down from his
horse he started to run towards the wood, and had almost reached the edge of it
before the attendant courtiers guessed his design. They called to him to come
back, but he ran on, and was about to fling himself boldly into the
undergrowth, when as by magic all the great trees, the shrubs, the creepers, the
ivies, briars and brambles, unlaced themselves of their own accord and drew
aside to let him pass. He found himself within a long glade or avenue, at the
end of which glimmered the walls of an old castle; and towards this he strode.
It surprised him somewhat that none of his attendants were following him; the
reason being that as soon as he had passed through it, the undergrowth drew
close as ever again. He heard their voices, fainter and fainter behind him,
beyond the barrier, calling, beseeching him, to desist. But he held on his way
without one backward look. He was a Prince, and young, and therefore valiant.
He came to the castle,
and pushing aside the ivies that hung like a curtain over the gateway, entered
a wide outer court and stood still for a moment, holding his breath, while his
eyes travelled over a scene that might well have frozen them with terror. The
court was silent, dreadfully silent; yet it was by no means empty. On all hands
lay straight, stiff bodies of men and beasts, seemingly all dead. Nevertheless,
as he continued to gaze, his courage returned; for the pimpled noses and ruddy
faces of the Switzers told him that they were no worse than asleep; and their
cups, which yet held a few heeltaps of wine, proved that they had fallen asleep
over a drinking-bout.
He stepped by them and
passed across a second great court paved with marble; he mounted a broad flight
of marble steps leading to the main doorway; he entered a guardroom, just
within the doorway, where the guards stood in rank with shouldered muskets,
every man of them asleep and snoring his best. He made his way through a number
of rooms filled with ladies and gentlemen, some standing, others sitting, but
all asleep. He drew aside a heavy purple curtain, and once more held his breath;
for he was looking into the great Hall of State where, at a long table, sat and
slumbered the King with his Council. The Lord Chancellor slept in the
act of dipping pen into inkpot; the Archbishop in the act of taking snuff; and
between the spectacles on the Archbishop’s nose and the spectacles on the Lord
Chancellor’s a spider had spun a beautiful web.
Prince Florimond tiptoed very carefully
past these august sleepers and, leaving the hall by another door, came to the
foot of the grand staircase. Up this, too, he went; wandered along a corridor
to his right, and, stopping by hazard at one of the many doors, opened it and
looked into a bath-room lined with mirrors and having in its midst, sunk in the
floor, a huge round basin of whitest porcelain wherein a spring of water
bubbled deliciously. Three steps led down to the bath, and at the head of them
stood a couch, with towels, and court-suit laid ready, exquisitely embroidered
and complete to the daintiest of lace ruffles and the most delicate of body
linen.
Then the Prince
bethought him that he had ridden far before ever coming to the wood; and the
mirrors told him that he was also somewhat travel-stained from his passage
through it. So, having by this time learnt to accept any new wonder without
question, he undressed himself and took a bath, which he thoroughly enjoyed.
Nor was he altogether astonished, when he tried on the clothes, to find that
they fitted him perfectly. Even the rosetted shoes of satin might have been
made to his measure.
Having arrayed himself
thus hardily, he resumed his quest along the corridor. The very next door he
tried opened on a chamber all panelled with white and gold; and there, on a bed
the curtains of which were drawn wide, he beheld the loveliest vision he had
ever seen: a Princess, seemingly about seventeen or eighteen years old, and of
a beauty so brilliant that he could not have believed this world held the like.
But she lay still, so
still … Prince Florimond drew near, trembling and wondering, and sank on
his knees beside her. Still she lay, scarcely seeming to breathe, and he bent
and touched with his lips the little hand that rested, light as a roseleaf, on
the coverlet. …
With that,
as the long spell of her enchantment came to an end, the Princess
awaked; and looking at him with eyes more tender than a first sight of him
might seem to excuse:—
“Is it you, my Prince?”
she said. “You have been a long while coming!”
The Prince,
charmed by these words, and still more by the manner in which they were spoken,
knew not how to find words for the bliss in his heart. He assured her that he
loved her better than his own self. Their speech after this was not very
coherent; they gazed at one another for longer stretches than they talked; but
if eloquence lacked, there was plenty of love. He, to be sure, showed the more
embarrassment; and no need to wonder at this—she had had time to think over
what to say to him; for I hold it hot unlikely (though the story does not say
anything of this) that the good Fairy Hippolyta had taken care to amuse
her, during her long sleep, with some pleasurable dreams. In short, the Princess
Aurora and the Prince Florimond conversed for four hours, and still
without saying the half they had to say.
Meanwhile all the
palaces had awaked with the Princess. In the Council Chamber the King
opened his eyes and requested the Lord Chancellor to read that last sentence of
his over again a little more distinctly. The Lord Chancellor, dipping his quill
into the dry inkpot, asked the Archbishop in a whisper how many t’s there were
in “regrettable.” The Archbishop, taking a pinch of snuff that had long ago
turned to dust, answered with a terrific sneeze, which again was drowned by the
striking of all the clocks in the palace, as they started frantically to make up
for lost time. Dogs barked, doors banged; the Princess’s parrot screamed
in his cage and was answered by the peacocks squawking from the terrace; amid
which hubbub the Minister for Agriculture, forgetting his manners, made a
trumpet of his hands and bawled across the table, begging His Majesty to
adjourn for dinner. In short, every one’s first thought was of his business;
and, as they were not all in love, they were ready to die with hunger.
Even the Queen,
who had dropped asleep while discussing with her maids-of-honour the shade of
mourning which most properly expressed regret for royal personages in a trance,
lost her patience at length, and sent one of her attendants with word that she,
for her part, was keen-set for something to eat, and that in her young days it
had been customary for young ladies released from enchantment to accept the
congratulations of their parents without loss of time. The Prince Florimond,
by this message recalled to his devoirs, helped the Princess to rise.
She was completely dressed, and very magnificently too.
Taking his beloved Princess
Aurora by the hand, he led her to her parents, who embraced her
passionately and—their first transports over—turned to welcome him as a son,
being charmed (quite apart from their gratitude) by the modest gallantry of his
address. They passed into a great dining-room lined with mirrors, where they
supped and were served by the royal attendants. Violins and hautboys was discoursed
music that was ancient indeed, but excellent, and the meal was scarcely
concluded before the company enjoyed a very pleasant surprise.
Prince Florimond, having no eyes but for
his love, might be excused if he forgot that his attendants must, long before
now, have carried home their report, and that his parents would be in deep
distress, wondering what had become of him. But the King, the Princess’s
father, had a truly royal habit of remembering details, especially when it
concerned setting folks at their ease. Before dinner he had dispatched a
messenger to carry word to Prince Florimond’s father, that his son was
safe, and to acquaint him briefly with what had befallen. The messenger, riding
through the undergrowth—which now obligingly parted before him as it had, a
while ago, to admit the Prince—and arriving at the out-skirts of the
wood, found there a search-party vainly endeavouring to break through the
barrier, with the Prince’s aged father standing by and exhorting them in
person, to whom he delivered his message. Trembling with relief—for he truly
supposed his son to be lost beyond recall—the old man entreated the messenger
to turn back and escort him. So he arrived, and was ushered into the hall.
The situation, to be
sure, was delicate. But when these two kings, both so well meaning, had met and
exchanged courtesies, and the one had raised the other by the hand to a place
on the dais beside him, already and without speech they had almost accorded.
“I am an old man,” said
the Prince’s father; “I have reigned long enough for my satisfaction,
and now care for little in life but to see my son happy.”
“I think I can promise
you that,” said the Princess’s father, smiling, with a glance at the two
lovers.
“I am old enough, at any
rate, to have done with ambitions,” said the one.
“And I,” said the other,
“have dreamed long enough, at any rate, to despise them. What matters ruling to
either of us two, while we see your son and my daughter reigning together?”
So it was agreed, then
and there; and after supper, without loss of time, the Archbishop married the Prince
Florimond and the Princess Aurora in the chapel of the Castle. The
two Kings and the Princess’s mother saw them to their chamber, and the
first maid-of-honour drew the curtain. They slept little—the Princesshad
no occasion; but the Prince next morning led his bride back to the city,
where they were acclaimed by the populace and lived happy ever after, reigning
in prosperity and honour.
~ The End ~
All about Sleeping Beauty:
Sleeping Beauty (French: La Belle au Bois
dormant, "The Beauty asleep in the wood") is a fairy tale
classic, the first in the set published in 1697 by Charles Perrault.
At the christening of a long-wished-for princess, fairies invited as godmothers
offered gifts, such as beauty, wit, and musical talent. However, a wicked fairy who had been overlooked
placed the princess under an enchantment as her gift, saying that, on reaching
adulthood, she would prick her finger on a spindle and die. A good fairy, though unable to
completely reverse the spell, said that the princess would instead sleep for a hundred years,
until awakened by the kiss of a prince.
The
princess meets the old woman, spinning. The king forbade spinning on distaff or
spindle, or the possession of one, upon pain of death, throughout the kingdom,
but all in vain. When the princess was fifteen or sixteen she chanced to come
upon an old woman in a tower of the castle, who was spinning. The Princess
asked to try the unfamiliar task and the inevitable happened. The wicked
fairy's curse was fulfilled. The good fairy returned and put everyone in the
castle to sleep. A forest of briars sprang up around the castle, shielding it
from the outside world: no one could try to penetrate it without facing certain
death in the thorns.
After a hundred years had passed, a prince who had heard
the story of the enchantment braved the wood, which parted at his approach, and
entered the castle. He trembled upon seeing the princess' beauty and fell on
his knees before her. He kissed her, then she woke up, then everyone in the
castle woke to continue where they had left off... and they all lived happily
ever after.
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