Dornröschen (1955)

Once upon a time, there was a king and queen who longed desperately for a child. The queen believes that no amount of wealth can make up for the happiness of having a child of their own. She learns from the fairy Bitterclover that her wish will come true if she drinks a magic potion. However, the queen prefers to follow different advice: she is told to bathe in the clear waters of the Lake of Wonders. There, she recognizes the helpful powers of nature rising from the mists and taking on the dancing forms of good fairies. When the royal child is born, all the fairies are to bless the girl’s path through life. Only the fairy Bitterclover is not invited by the king and queen to give the child her wishes for the future. In revenge, she places a curse on the newborn child: when the girl is 16, she will prick her finger on a spindle and die from it. Since the fairies present cannot undo the death curse, the twelfth fairy, who has not yet made her wish, softens it, changing it into a hundred-year sleep, with the addition that a noble prince could awaken the sleeping girl. The king then decrees that his daughter must never learn of the evil spell, and has all the spindles in his kingdom banned. The child grows into a young woman. On her sixteenth birthday, the princess explores a room in a tower, where she discovers an old woman spinning. The princess becomes curious and wants to try it herself. When she takes the spindle in her hand, she pricks her finger, and the fairy Bitterclover’s curse comes true. The princess and everyone in and outside the castle fall into a deep, prolonged sleep. An impenetrable hedge of thorns grows up around the castle. For 100 years, no one manages to penetrate the overgrown rose hedge surrounding the castle and awaken the sleeping girl, who is therefore called Sleeping Beauty. Only when a king’s son approaches, guided by a premonition and showing courage, does the spell fade, and the enchanted Sleeping Beauty awakens to new life.