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This article focuses on the fairytale, "Sleeping Beauty".
For the film, see "Sleeping Beauty (Film)".
For the first Enchanted Forest character known as Sleeping Beauty, see Briar Rose.
For the second, see Aurora.


"Sleeping Beauty", also known as "La Belle au bois dormant", is a fairytale featured on ABC's Once Upon a Time. It was written by French author Charles Perrault and incorporated in the book "Stories or Fairy Tales from Past Times with Morals" in 1697. Another version of this story was written by the German authors, The Brothers Grimm, under the title "Little Briar Rose".


Plot

A King and Queen longing to have children do everything in their power to conceive but are unable to do so. After some time, the Queen gives birth to a baby girl and both she and her husband prepare a banquet to take place on the day of the christening. Among the invited guests are seven fairies, who are selected to act as godmothers to the princess.

The day of the christening eventually arrives and, following the proceedings, the royals and their guests adjourn to the King's castle for the banquet. The seven fairies, upon taking their seats, are presented with golden caskets and bejeweled cutlery. At the exact same moment, an elderly fairy, who had been overlooked because everyone believed her to be dead, enters and is given a place seating but not a golden casket. Taking offense at the perceived oversight, she murmurs threats under her breath only to be overheard by the youngest of the seven fairies, who hides when the guests finish eating. 

After the six other fairies bless the princess with the gifts of beauty, wit, grace, dance, song, and musicality, the Wicked Fairy curses her to prick her finger on a spindle and die. The youngest fairy immediately steps forward and uses her gift to partially reverse the curse, making it so that the princess will instead fall into a deep sleep that will last a hundred years and end when she is awoken by a king's son.

The King, determined to prevent the Wicked Fairy's prophecy from being fulfilled, bans all spinning wheels and spindles from the kingdom, proclaiming that anyone in possession of such objects shall be put to death.

When the princess is fifteen or sixteen and her parents are away on pleasure bent, she wanders through the palace rooms going up and down and then chances upon an old woman who is spinning with her distaff in the garret of a tower and had not heard of the king's decree against spinning wheels. The princess asks to try the unfamiliar task and the inevitable happens: the curse is fulfilled. The old woman cries for help and attempts are made to revive her, but to no avail. The king attributes this to fate and has the princess carried to the finest room in the palace and placed upon a bed of gold-and-silver-embroidered fabric.

The good fairy who altered the evil prophecy is summoned by a dwarf wearing seven-league boots and returns in a chariot of fire drawn by dragons. Having great powers of foresight, the good fairy sees that the princess will be distressed to find herself alone and so puts everyone in the castle to sleep. The king and queen kiss their daughter goodbye and depart, proclaiming the entrance to be forbidden. The good fairy's magic also summons a forest of trees, brambles and thorns that spring up around the castle, shielding it from the outside world and preventing anyone from disturbing the princess.

A hundred years pass and a prince from another family spies the hidden castle during a hunting expedition. His attendants tell him differing stories regarding the happenings in the castle until an old man recounts his father's words: within the castle lies a beautiful princess who is doomed to sleep for a hundred years, whereupon a king's son is to come and awaken her. The prince then braves the tall trees, brambles and thorns which part at his approach, and enters the castle. He passes the sleeping castle folk and comes across the chamber where the princess lies asleep on the bed.

Trembling at the radiant beauty before him, he falls on his knees before her. The enchantment comes to an end and the princess awakens and converses with the prince for a long time. Meanwhile, the rest of the castle awakes and go about their business. The prince and princess head over to the hall of mirrors to dine and are later married by the chaplain in the castle chapel.

Show Adaptation

  • Once Upon a Time uses the names Aurora, Phillip, Maleficent and Stefan, which are the names given to Sleeping Beauty, her prince, the wicked fairy and the king respectively in the Disney version. In the Perrault story, Sleeping Beauty has a daughter named L'Aurore, which is the origin of "Aurora" as the name of Sleeping Beauty herself in the Disney movie.
  • Princess Aurora is the daughter of the first Sleeping Beauty, who also fell under the Sleeping Curse in the past.[1]
  • Maleficent pricks Aurora forcefully with a spinning wheel spindle.
  • Maleficent transformed Prince Philip into a Yaoguai so he won't find Aurora.
  • Prince Phillip traveled with Mulan to find Aurora, who slept for more than twenty-eight years, not a hundred.


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References

This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).
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