This is post #7 of my penance after I have been blacklisted by Hivewatchers for plagiarizing.
No need to upvote this post, as the payout has been declined.
But comments are welcome. I will continue to upvote all meaningful comments.
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY
In a moment, she was in front of her father's castle.
The Flying Snake left without saying a word, and the poor girl went to her father's room.
“Good evening, Father."
"Good evening, my daughter. What are you coming back to do here?"
"Father, I came back here to wait for my wedding day."
The young girl therefore settled in the castle. The next day, his parents and their servants became sad, sad as death. Two days later, they fell ill. Three days later, they were unable to leave their beds.
“Ah! thought the young girl, I have left the castle of the Flying Serpent. Here he is taking revenge on my family."
So she called her little dog and went for a walk in the castle garden. It was in May. The flowers were fragrant, and painted in all colors. But in one corner the earth was hard and icy.
The young girl lit an armful of dry branches there. Immediately, the Flying Serpent emerged from the ground.
“Darling, if you don’t marry me this morning, your parents and their servants will die by sunset."
"Flying Serpent, go tell the priest to hurry and come back for me in an hour." An hour later, the Flying Serpent loaded the bride dressed in white on his back, and flew through the air, a hundred times faster than a swallow. The wedding mass finished, the Flying Serpent said to his wife:
“Cutie, look. What do you see?"
"To my right, I see a young man as handsome as day. On the ground, I see the wings and skin of the Flying Serpent."
"Cutie, listen. I am a king like your father. Marriage freed me forever from the misfortune that a bad man had brought upon me. My people are waiting for you at the church door to take you to my castle. Take these Flying Serpent wings and skin to our room. Be sure to burn them, when you return, to the last piece. If you disobey me, misfortune will be upon you. If you do as I command you, I will arrive at the stroke of midnight, and we will live happily together."
"King, you will be obeyed."
The king left, and his people brought the queen back to the castle. There, she ordered a large fire of branches to be lit in the fireplace of her room, double-locked the door, and threw the wings and skin of the Flying Serpent into the flame. An hour later, there remained, in the cold ashes, only a beautiful flower, just like the one that the bride's father had picked in the Flying Serpent's flower bed.
The queen took the beautiful flower and put it in a cool place in a golden vase. This done, she lay down and fell asleep. But, a quarter of an hour before midnight, the bad man arrived.
“Good,” he said. "The beautiful flower is not burned."
Then he took the sleeping queen in his arms and set off through the clouds.
At the stroke of midnight, the king knocked on the bedroom door.
"Bang! Bang! Don't be afraid, sweetie. Open the door."
But no one answered. With a push of his shoulder, the king broke down the door. The room and the bed were empty. But the beautiful flower was fragrant in its golden vase.
"Misfortune! The bad man has come."
All night the king thought very sadly. As the sun rose, he thought:
“Let’s go and speak to the Pope of Rome."
A year later, he entered the room of the Pope of Rome.
“Hello, Pope of Rome. I have come to ask you a great favor."
"Speak, my friend."
"Pope of Rome, a bad man has taken my wife. Do you know where she is?"
"No, my friend. But Saint Peter will tell you."
Source: La Belle endormie, from the French book Contes populaires de la Gascogne, tome 1, published in 1886.
Hello, my name is Vincent Celier.
I am writing translations of folk tales that I found in public domain French books, so that people who do not understand French may enjoy them too.
As somebody commented yesterday, the beginning of this tale is similar to the beginning of The King of the Ravens, the first tale from Gascony that I posted in August:
With him lived his three daughters: the eldest beautiful as the day, the younger more beautiful than the eldest; the last, who was only ten years old, more beautiful than the other two.
Here it is a Flying Serpent who asks for one of the three daughters in marriage, while it is a Raven in the other story.
And in both stories, only the third daughter volunteers to be married.
There is also a similarity with another story, The Young Man and the Great Beast with a Human Head. In both stories, somebody is visiting a prelate of the Catholic Church In the previous story it was the Archbishop of Auch, here it is the Pope of Rome. You cannot go higher than that, on earth. You will notice that, in these stories, these prelates are very accessible. I doubt that it was so easy to visit them.
And, once again, Saint Peter will appear in the next episode of this story, similar to what happened in The Sword of Saint Peter.
Last year, Kati, my wife, bought two properties that are bordering her first property, at number 7 of the street. One of these properties is the next one on the street, which is numbered 13 and not 9 for some reason.
The number 13 property was a disaster. The land was full of garbage and vegetation. The house was in very bad shape. This is now much better.
The house has had many improvements: a new frame and a new roof, a new outside door, six new windows, a new stair to go to the second floor (that was an inaccessible attic before), and a new outside terrace.
This house also has a wine cellar, bigger than the one in the house of number 7. Today, we have cleaned it and removed many things that the workers had left.
Last Friday, Kati ordered a container so that we could fill it with garbage that we have collected, including in the cellar.
As the container is almost full, it will be removed today or tomorrow.
Last year and this year, we have already filled more than ten such containers with garbage and debris.
-- Vincent Celier