Sleeping Beauty
World Fairy Tales · 1 min read
At a princess's christening, a jealous fairy, uninvited to the celebration, cursed the infant to prick her finger on a spinning wheel's spindle on her fifteenth birthday and die. Another fairy, unable to undo the curse entirely, softened it: instead of death, the princess would fall into a deep sleep for one hundred years, broken only by a prince's true kiss.
Determined to prevent it, the king ordered every spinning wheel in the kingdom destroyed. But on her fifteenth birthday, exploring a forgotten tower room, the princess found an old woman still spinning on a wheel no one had discovered, and, curious, pricked her finger on the spindle exactly as foretold.
She fell instantly into an enchanted sleep, and with her, the entire castle — servants, animals, even the kitchen fire — fell still, while a great thorny hedge grew up around the grounds, hiding it from the world for a century. At last, a prince, hearing the old legend, cut through the ancient thorns and found her sleeping, undisturbed by time. His kiss woke her — and with her, the whole castle stirred back to life exactly where it had left off, a hundred years vanished in what felt like a single night.
Moral of the story
A destiny prophesied often finds its way to fulfillment despite every effort to prevent it.