alone in the old castle; so this is what the fairy did. With
her wand she touched everybody who was in the castle, except the King
and Queen: governesses, maids of honour, women of the bed-chamber,
gentlemen, officers, stewards, cooks, scullions, boys, guards, porters,
pages, footmen; she also touched the horses that were in the stables
with their grooms, the great mastiffs in the courtyard, and little
Fluff, the pet dog of the Princess, that was on the bed beside her. As
soon as she had touched them, they all fell asleep, not to wake again
until the hour arrived for their mistress to do so, in order that they
should all be ready to attend upon her as soon as she should want them.
Even the spits before the fire, hung with partridges and pheasants, and
the very fire itself, went to sleep. All this was done in a moment, for
fairies never lost much time over their work.

The King and Queen now kissed their dear daughter, who still slept on,
quitted the castle, and issued a proclamation forbidding any person,
whosoever, to approach it. These orders were unnecessary, for in a
quarter of an hour there grew up around the park such a number of trees,
large and small, of brambles and thorns interlacing each other, that
neither man nor beast could have got through them, and nothing could be
now seen of the castle but the tops of the turrets, and they only from
a considerable distance. Nobody doubted that this also was some of the
fairy's handiwork, in order that the Princess might be protected from
the curiosity of strangers during her long slumber.

When the hundred years had passed away, the son of the King at that time
upon the throne, and who was of a different family to that of the
sleeping Princess, having been hunting in the neighbourhood, inquired
what towers they were that he saw above the trees of a very thick wood.
Each person answered him according to the story he had heard. Some said
it was an old castle, haunted by ghosts; others, that all the witches of
the country held their midnight revels there. The more general opinion,
however, was that it was the abode of an ogre, and that he carried
thither all the children he could catch, in order to eat them at his
leisure, and without being pursued, he alone having the power of making
his way through the wood.

The Prince did not know what to believe of all this, when an old peasant
spoke in his turn, and said to him, "Prince, it is more than fifty years
ago since I hea