Sleeping Beauty
A European fairy tale
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Story
A king and a queen have a baby girl. At the celebration of her birth, one of the fairies places a curse on the baby – on her 15th birthday she will prick her finger and die! Another fairy changes the curse so that she will not die but fall into a deep sleep. The king collects up all the sharp objects in the palace: the spindles, the spikes and even the sharp nails so that the princess won’t be able to prick her finger. On her 15th birthday the princess finds a staircase and a door she has never seen before. Behind the door she finds an old woman spinning. When the princess has a go she pricks her finger and falls into a deep sleep. Everyone in the palace also falls asleep. After one hundred years a young man hears of the sleeping princess and comes to wake her.
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Why we chose it
A classic fairy tale. The romantic version of the tale, popularised by the Disney film, is particularly popular with lovers of fairy tale princesses.