Briar Rose

A king and queen once reigned in a country far away where fairies still walked. They had riches, fine clothes, good food and drink, and a coach to ride out in every day—but after many years of marriage they still had no child, and that grieved them very deeply indeed. One day by the river at the foot of the garden the queen found a little fish gasping on the bank. She threw it back. Before it swam away it lifted its head and said her kindness would be repaid: she would soon have a daughter.

When the baby princess was born, the king ordered a great feast and invited not only kin and friends but also the fairies of the land, so each might bless the child with a gift. There were thirteen fairies in that country, but he had only twelve golden plates for them to dine from, so one fairy was left out of the invitation.

The feast was splendid with gold and music. Eleven fairies gave gifts of beauty, virtue, wealth, song, and every excellence a royal child might need. Before the twelfth could speak her blessing, the uninvited thirteenth appeared in a rage, ungreeted and unserved. She cried that in her fifteenth year the princess would prick her hand on a spindle and fall down dead—then vanished as suddenly as she had come. The twelfth fairy, who still held her wish, could not undo the cruel sentence entirely, but she softened it: the princess would not die; she would only sleep a hundred years.

The king hoped to save her by ordering every spindle in the kingdom burned. The princess grew into the gifted child the fairies had promised. On her fifteenth birthday, when the king and queen were away, she wandered alone through the castle and found an old tower stair. At the top a golden key stood in a little door. When she turned it, the door sprang open, and there sat an old woman spinning busily. “Good mother, what are you doing there?” asked the princess. “Spinning,” said the old woman, nodding and humming as the wheel buzzed. “How prettily that little thing turns round!” said the princess, and she took the spindle to try it herself. Scarcely had she touched it when the prophecy came true: the spindle pricked her, and she fell to the floor as if lifeless.

The sleep spread through every room. The king and queen, just returned from their journey, slept in the hall where they stood. Horses in the stable slept in their stalls, dogs in the yard, pigeons on the roof, even the flies on the wall. The kitchen fire sank low, the roast stopped turning on the spit, the cook let go of the kitchen boy whose hair she had been pulling, and everything grew still as stone. Around the castle a hedge of briars rose, thick and sharp, and grew year by year until only the topmost towers showed above the thorns, and people called the place Briar Rose.

From time to time princes tried to force the hedge and died tangled in the thorns. At last, when many years had passed, a prince from far away heard the story from an old man, who told him that many princes had died in the thicket. “None of that frightens me,” said the prince. “I mean to see this Briar Rose for myself.” The old man tried to stop him, but he would not be warned off. On the very day the hundred years ended he rode up and found the briars in full flower, soft and bright; they parted of their own accord and let him through unhurt. In the castle courtyard horses and spotted hounds still slept where they had fallen. On the roof sat pigeons with their heads tucked under their wings. Inside, the prince passed the sleeping king and queen on their thrones and climbed the old tower stair. There lay Briar Rose as if she had slept only an hour. He bent and kissed her.

She opened her eyes, smiled, and looked at him as if she already knew his face. The whole castle woke with her: horses shook themselves, hounds sprang up and wagged, pigeons fluttered, flies crawled, the kitchen fire blazed, the spit turned with the goose, the butler finished his ale, the maid plucked the fowl, and the cook boxed the boy’s ear. Then the prince and Briar Rose were married, the wedding feast was held, and they lived happily together all their lives long.

Where this tale comes from

This is the Grimm “Sleeping Beauty,” as told in Project Gutenberg’s Grimms’ Fairy Tales (#2591), whose English text is based on the translations of Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes. Its German title is “Dornröschen,” which Margaret Hunt renders as “Little Briar-Rose,” number 50 in her translation.

Charles Perrault published a French version, “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood,” in 1697; the Grimms’ tale is shorter and stops at the wedding. In Margaret Hunt’s translation a frog, not a fish, foretells the birth, and the thirteen guests are “Wise Women” rather than fairies. The princes who die in the thorns are mentioned in a single line here.

Read the original: Grimms’ Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg #2591)

Reading guidance: older children, or younger listeners with adult preparation. Includes a death curse, princes dying in thorns, a kiss while the princess sleeps and a servant being struck. Discuss these details alongside the magical awakening.

Reading the story closely

The successful prince arrives on the day the hundred years end. The hedge has changed before he reaches the princess, so his success cannot simply be explained as greater courage than the princes who died. Timing is part of the mechanism. The sleep also suspends everyday actions, and the awakening resumes both the pleasant ones and the cook’s cruelty.

Create pairs of freeze-frame drawings: the kitchen, courtyard and hall just before sleep and just after waking. Which movements continue? Add a different line for the cook that would make the renewed life kinder without changing the magical plot.

Talk about it

• Why do you think the thirteenth fairy was so angry about being left out?
• The king burned every spindle, but the curse still came true. Why do you think that happened?
• If you fell asleep for a hundred years, what would you most want to see or ask about when you woke up?

Related stories

• Snowdrop — another Grimm princess who falls into a deathlike sleep and wakes to marry
• Ashputtel — a Grimm heroine whose kindness is repaid with magic help and a royal wedding
• The Twelve Dancing Princesses — another Grimm story set in a castle full of royal secrets and spells