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roads were crowded with people waiting to see the guests come and go. The carriages extended for nearly a mile, and as they drove away, headed by the royal coach, in which the Queen sat with the Princess Briar-Rose in her arms, the spectators took off their hats and shouted and cheered. Some of the little boys perched themselves on the branches of trees and the lamp-posts in order to get a better view, and I have been told that there was one poor woman who saw nothing at all, because her boy tried to climb up to an inn sign, where he dangled in such a dangerous position that his poor old mother had to stand with her back to the procession, holding on to his legs in a terrible state of anxiety lest he should fall.
At the palace, a magnificent feast had been prepared.
Now it was the custom in those days, when a King’s child was christened, for all the fairies in the country to be invited to the christening feast. Each fairy was bound to bring a gift, so of course it stood to reason that the royal child would have everything that the heart could possibly desire.
There were thirteen fairies in the King’s realm, but one of them lived in a lonely place on the outskirts of the kingdom. There, for the last fifty years, she had shut herself up in a ruined tower with only a black cat to keep her company, and as she kept herself to herself, everybody had forgotten her very existence. The result was that she was not invited to the christening feast, and though she had nobody but herself to blame for this, she was very angry about it. The truth of the matter is that she was always a