THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 21

palace, and issued a command that no
one should come near it. This, how-
ever, was not needed; for in less than
a quarter of an hour, there got up all
around the park such a vast number
of trees, great and small bushes, and
brambles, twined one within the other,
that neither man nor beast could pass
through, so that nothing could be seen
but the very tops of the towers, and not
that even, unless it were a good way
off. Nobody doubted but that here was
an extraordinary example of the fairies’
art, that the princess, while she remained
sleeping, might have nothing to fear
from any curious people.

When a hundred years were gone and
past, the son of a king then reigning,
who was of another family from that of
the sleeping princess, being out a-hunting
on that side of the country, asked what
these towers were which he saw in the
midst of a great thick wood. Every one
answered according as they had heard ;
some said it was an old ruinous castle
haunted by spirits; others, that all the