At that very moment everybody and everything in the palace stopped what they were doing, and fell fast asleep too.
The King and Queen sank down in two royal chairs; the cook in the kitchen, who was just going to box the scullion’s ears, went fast asleep with her hand still in the air. The scullion, with his mouth wide open, ready to roar with the pain, left it open and went fast asleep too. The horses in the stable went to sleep in the middle of eating their corn; the pigeons on the stable roof hadn’t even time to tuck their heads under their wings, but fell asleep as they were strutting around with their tails still spread out. The flies slept on the ceiling; the canary did not want to have the green cover put over its cage, but slept in broad daylight. The fire stopped crackling and burning, the pots stopped boiling, nothing stirred, nothing moved, not a sound was heard. Only round the palace there sprung up a hedge of briar-roses which grew taller and taller, as time went on, until the palace was quite hidden, and not even the top of the flagstaff could be seen.
