Four and Twenty Fairy Tales

cannot express it. They visited all the baths in the world. Vows, pilgrimages, everything was tried, and nothin

. After the baptismal ceremonies all the company returned to the King's palace, where a great banquet was set out for the Fairies. Covers were laid for each, consisting of a magnificent plate, with a massive gold case, containing a spoon, a fork, and a knife of fine gold, enriched

n might do. In the meanwhile, the Fairies began to endow the Princess. The youngest, as her gift, decreed that she should be the most beautiful person in the world; the next Fairy, that she should have the mind of an angel; the third, that she should evince the most admirable grace in all she did; the fourth, that she should dance to perfection; the fifth, that she should sing like a nightingale; and the sixth, that she should play on every instrument in the most exquisite manner possible. The turn of the old Fairy having arrived, she declared, while her head shook more with malice than with age, that the Princess s

diately caused an edict to be published, by which he forbade any one to spin

s with Queen of Hungary's water,[3] but nothing could bring her to. The King, who had run upstairs at the noise, then remembered the prediction of the Fairies, and, wisely concluding that this must have occurred as the Fairies said it would, had the Princess conveyed into the finest apartment in the palace, and placed on a bed of gold and silver embroidery. One would have said she was an angel, so lovely did she appear-for her swoon had not deprived her of her rich complexion: her cheeks preserved their crimson, and her lips were like coral. Her eyes were closed, but they could hear her breathe softly, which showed that she was not dead. The King commanded them to let her repose in peace until the hour arrived for her waking. The good Fairy who had saved her life, by decreeing that she should sleep for an hundred years, was in the Kingdom of Mataquin, twelve thousand leagues off, when the Princess met with her accident; but she was informed of it instantly by a little dwarf, who had a pair of seven-league boots (that is, boots which enabled the wearer to take seven leagues at a stride[4]). The Fairy set out immedi

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t. These orders were unnecessary, for in a quarter of an hour there grew up around the Park so great a quantity of trees, large and small, of brambles and thorns, interlacing each other, that neither man nor beast could get through them, so that nothing more wa

these words, felt himself all on fire. He believed, without hesitation, that he was destined to accomplish this famous adventure; and, impelled by love and glory, resolved to see what would come of it, upon the spot. Scarcely had he approached the wood, when all those great trees, all those brambles and thorns made way for him to pass of their own accord. He walked towards the Castle, which he saw at the end of a long avenue he had entered, and what rather surprised him was, that he found none of his people had been able to follow him, the trees having closed up again as soon as he had passed. He continued, nevertheless, to advance; a young and amorous prince is always courageous. He entered a large fore-court, where everything he saw was calculated to freeze his blood with terror. A frightful silence reigned around. Death seemed everywhere present. Nothing was to be seen but the bodies of men and animals stretched out apparently lifeless. He soon discovered, however, by the shining noses and red faces of the porters, that they were only asleep; and their goblets, in which still remained a f

n she was, and one ought not to be astonished at that. The Princess had had time enough to consider what she should say to him, for there is reason to believe (though history makes no mention of i

ble. The Prince assisted the Princess to rise; she was full dressed, and most magnificently, but he took good care not to hint to her that she was attired like his grandmother, and wore a stand-up collar.[5] She looked, however, not a morsel the less lovely in it. They passed into a hall of mirrors, in which

his supper. The King, his father, who was a simple man, believed him, but his mother was not so easily satisfied; and observing that he went hunting nearly every day, and had always some story ready as an excuse, when he had slept two or three nights away from home, she

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, his wife, to the palace. She made a magnificent entry into the capital with her two children, one on each side of her. Some time afterwards, the King went to war with his neighbour, the Emperor Cantalabute. He left the regency of the kingdom to the Queen, his mother, earnestly recommending to her care his wife and his children. He was likely to be all the summer in the field, and as soon as he was gone, the Queen-mother sent her daughter-in-law and the children to a country house in the wood, that she might more easily gratify her horrible longing. She followed them thither a few days after, and said one evening to her Ma?tre d'H?tel, "I will eat little Aurora for dinner to-morrow." "Ah, Madam!" exclaimed the Ma?tre d'H?tel. "I will," said the Queen (and she s

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s wife, who hid him where she had hidden his sister, and then cooked a very tender little kid in the place of little Day, and which the Ogress thought wonderfully good. All went well enough so far, but one evening this wicked Queen said to the Ma?tre d'H?tel, "I would eat the Queen with the same sauce that I had with her

the order that has been given to you. I shall again behold my children, my poor children, that I loved so dearly." She had imagined them to be dead ever since they had been carried off without explanation. "No, no, Madam!" replied the poor Ma?tre d'H?tel, touched to the quick, "you shall not die, and you shall see your children again, but it shall be in my own house, where I have hidden them; and I will again deceive the Queen-mother

e next morning early there should be brought into the middle of the court a large copper, which she had filled with toads, vipers, adders, and serpents, in order to fling into it the Queen, her children, the Ma?tre d'H?tel, his wife, and his maid servant. She had commanded that they should be brought thither with hands tied behind them. There they stood, and the executioners were preparing to fling them into the copper, when the King, who was not expected so early, entered the court-ya

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