NARRATOR: Once upon a time,
in a beautiful castle,
lived a king and a queen
who were very happy,
as a baby princess
had just been born to them.
She was so beautiful
that they decided to call her just Beauty.
The king decided to hold a great feast
and to invite all the fairies of his kingdom.
The king wrote to all the 13 fairies
in his kingdom
and the queen counted the golden dishes
they would eat from.
To their dismay,
they found there were only 1 2 dishes.
One fairy must be left out.
Next day, the king's page
carried the invitations
to all the fairies of the kingdom, except one.
They were all delighted
to hear of the birth of the princess
and said they would come to the feast.
At the feast, the fairies gave all their
best gifts to the little princess.;
virtue, beauty, riches,
a voice for singing, lips for kissing
and feet for dancing,
all that was good and right
for a baby princess to have.
But a small, black messenger flew
to the thirteenth fairy
who had not been invited to the feast,
and told her what was going on.
The thirteenth fairy was a wicked fairy
and was very angry.
(FAlRY CACKLlNG)
This is my gift for Beauty.
Fifteen years she will live with your gifts,
but on her fifteenth birthday, she will prick
her finger with a spindle and will die.
(FAlRY CACKLlNG)
The king and queen
were heartbroken at the wicked fairy's spell
and all the fairies were dismayed.
But the rose fairy,
who had not yet given her gift,
used her power to alter the spell.
lf the princess pricked her finger,
she would not die but fall asleep,
and would be wakened
by a kiss after a hundred years.
To try to prevent the spell,
the king ordered that all the spindles
in his kingdom should be destroyed.
Everywhere, housewives
brought out their spindles
and the king's men carried them away.
And time passed.
lt was the princess's fifteenth birthday.
Wandering in the garden,
Beauty came upon a strange, high tower
and looking up, she saw an old woman
beckoning to her.
lt was really the wicked fairy.
She was spinning.
The princess had never seen a spindle before
and she asked if she could try it.
And she pricked her finger
and the spell began to work
and she fell into a deep sleep.
(FAlRY CACKLlNG)
The king and queen fell asleep
and the page fell asleep, too.
The servants fell asleep and the knight
in the courtyard and his groom fell asleep.
The dogs fell asleep and the horses
in their stables and the soldiers at the gate.
And in the kitchen, the fire stopped blazing
and went to sleep
and the scullery maid dropped the fowl
she was plucking.
And the cook, who was just catching the
kitchen boy stealing tarts, dropped his ladle
and they all fell asleep.
And so everything stood still.
And thorns grew up round the palace
and surrounded it, and the years passed.
And in the world outside, children were born
and grew up and had children of their own
but everything in the castle slept.
A hundred years passed.
And then one day, a king's son
came into this land and saw the castle
and wondered what it might be.
And an old shepherd told him
of the legend of the castle,
which had fallen under a spell of sleep.
And of the beautiful young princess
who had slept for a hundred years.
And the surrounding hedge of thorns,
which for a century
no one had been able to penetrate.
The prince spurred forward,
eager to see the marvel.
At his approach, the thorns fell away,
for the hundred years of the spell had passed.
The princess fell in love with the prince
and slowly the spell of sleep unwound
from the castle.
And all the court were filled with wonder
at the strange thing which had befallen them
and at the handsome young prince who had
come to awake Beauty from her sleep.
And the prince married Beauty
and they lived in the castle
and the thorns disappeared forever.
Sleeping Beauty, The (1954)
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