The Sleeper and the Spindle

woodcutter, asleep by the bole of a tree half-felled half a century before, and now grown into an arch, opened his mouth as the queen and the dwarfs passed and said, “My! What an unusual naming-day present that must have been!”

Three bandits, asleep in the middle of what remained of the trail, their limbs crooked as if they had fallen asleep while hiding in a tree above and had tumbled, without waking, to the ground below, said, in unison, without waking, “Will you bring me roses?”

One of them, a huge man, fat as a bear in autumn, seized the queen’s ankle as she came close to him. The smallest dwarf did not even hesitate: he lopped the hand off with his hand-axe, and the queen pulled the man’s fingers away, one by one, until the hand fell on the leaf mould.

“Bring me roses,” said the three bandits as they slept, with one voice, while the blood oozed indolently on to the ground from the stump of the fat man’s arm. “I would be so happy if only you would bring me roses.”