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 32 ROSEBUD.

and ordered that all the spindles in the kingdom should be bought up and destroyed All the fairies' gifts were in the mean time fulfilled ; for the princess was so beautiful, and well-behaved, and amiable, and wise, that everyone who knew her loved her. Now it happened that on the very day she was fifteen years old the king and queen were not at home, and she was left alone in the palace. So she roved about by herself, and looked at all the rooms and chambers, till at last she came to an old tower, to which there was a narrow staircase ending with a little door. In the door there was a golden key, and when she turned it the door sprang open, and there sat an old lady spinning away very busily. " Why, how now, good mother," said the princess, " what are you doing there?" "Spinning," said the old lady, and nodded her head. "How prettily that little thing turns round!" said the princess, and took the spindle and began to spin. But scarcely had she touched it before the prophecy was fulfilled, and she fell down lifeless on the ground.

However, she was not dead, but had only fallen into a deep sleep ; and the king and the queen, who just then came home, and all their court, feU asleep too ; and the horses slept in the stables, and the dogs in the court, the pigeons on the housetop, and the flies on the walls. Even the fire on the hearth left oflT blazing, and went to sleep ; and the meat that was roasting stood still ; and the cook, who was at that moment pulling the kitchen-boy by the hair to give him a box on the ear for something he had done amiss* let him go, and both fell asleep ; and so everything stood still, and slept soundly.

A large hedge of thorns soon gi*ew round the palace, and every year it became higher and thicker, till at last the whole palace was siuTOunded and hid, so that not even the roof or the chimneys could be seen. But there went a report through all the land of the beautiful sleeping Bose-Bud (for so was the king's daughter called); so that