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 they were piled up into an immense heap in the public square.

Then the King and Queen and all the court came out and watched while the big heap was set on fire. The people came out to watch too in their thousands, and a very fine sight it was to see the enormous flames shooting up into the air and to hear the crackle and hiss of the burning wood that sounded like the discharge of a hundred muskets.

The King laughed aloud in his relief, and even the Queen smiled, while the little Princess Briar-Rose, who was held up to a window of the palace to see the bonfire, stretched out her arms to the pretty flames and crowed. But the people were not very much amused by the sight because they were their spinning-wheels which were being burnt.