Page:The Allies Fairy Book.djvu/99

 that this was another piece of the fairy’s handiwork, and all arranged so that the princess, while she slept, should have nothing to fear from inquisitive strangers.

At the end of a hundred years, the son of a king who was reigning at that time, and who did not belong to the same family as the sleeping princess, was hunting in the neighbourhood, and asked what were those towers that he saw



peeping up above a dense forest. Every one told him just what each had heard. Some said it was an old castle haunted by spirits; others that all the sorcerers in the country gathered there to celebrate their rites. The most common belief was that an ogre lived there, who carried thither all the children he could lay hands on, and ate them at his leisure, without any one being able to follow him, because he alone was able to force his way through the wood.

The prince was wondering what to think when a peasant came forward. “Fifty years ago, my prince,” said the peasant, “my father told me that there was a princess in the castle—the most beautiful princess ever seen—who was