‘Sleeping Beauty, The’

European folk tale. Cursed by the fairy her parents forgot to invite to her christening, a princess falls asleep together with the whole royal court. She is awakened after 100 years by the kiss of a prince. Modern versions end here but in Perrault's version 1697, a secret marriage is followed by conflict with the prince's wicked mother, who is finally destroyed in her own tub of serpents and scorpions. The story is the basis of a ballet by Tchaikovsky, first performed 1890.