The feast was held with all manner of splendor. When it came to an end the Wise Women bestowed their magic gifts upon the baby. One gave Virtue, another Beauty, a third Riches, and so on with everything in the world that one can wish for.
When eleven of them had made their promises, suddenly the thirteenth came in. She wished to avenge herself for not having been invited, and without greeting, or even looking at any one, she cried with a loud voice, “The King’s Daughter, in her fifteenth year, shall prick herself with a spindle, and fall down dead.” And, without saying a word more, she turned round and left the room.
They were all shocked. But the twelfth, whose good wish still remained unspoken, came forward, and as she could not undo the evil sentence, but only soften it, she said, “It shall not be death, but a deep sleep of a hundred years, into which the Princess shall fall.”
The King, who wished to keep his dear child from the misfortune, gave orders that every spindle in the whole kingdom should be burnt. Meanwhile, the gifts of the Wise Women were fulfilled on the young girl, for she was so beautiful, modest, sweet tempered, and wise, that every one who saw her, was bound to love her.
It happened that on the very day, when she was fifteen years old, the King and Queen were not at home, and the maiden was left in the palace quite alone. So she went round into all sorts of places, looked into rooms and bedchambers just as she liked, and at last came to an old tower. She climbed up the narrow winding-staircase, and reached a little door. A rusty key was in the lock, and when she turned it the door sprang open. There in a little room sat an Old Woman with a spindle, busily spinning flax.
“Good day, old Dame,” said the King’s Daughter; “what are you doing there?”
“I am spinning,” said the Old Woman, and nodded her head.
“What sort of thing is that, which rattles round so merrily?” said the maiden, and she took the spindle and wanted to spin too. But scarcely had she touched the spindle when the magic decree was fulfilled, and she pricked her finger with it.
And, in the very moment when she felt the prick, she fell down upon the bed that stood there, and lay in a deep sleep. And this sleep extended over the whole palace.