22 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.

 

sorcerers and witches kept their sabbath
or weekly meeting in that place.

The most common opinion was, that
. an ogre lived there, and that he carried
thither all the little children he could
catch, that he might eat them up at his
leisure, without anybody being able to
follow him, as having himself only power
to pass through the wood.

The prince was at a stand, not knowing
what to believe, when an aged man spoke
to him thus :

“‘May it please your highness, it is
about fifty years since I heard from my
father, who heard my grandfather say,
that there was then in that castle a prin-
cess, the most beautiful that was ever