Soothsayers from everywhere were summoned. They examined the stars and poured over their books. Alas, they proved no wiser than the doctors. Among them was an old mago or wizard, a stranger. After the others had all had their say, the mago came forward and spoke. "I am familiar with cases of blindness like yours, King Maximus. The cure is nowhere to be found but in the Sleeping Queen's city. It is in the healing waters in her well."
The amazement at these words had not yet dissipated before the mago himself vanished and was never seen again.
The king was eager to find out who this mago was, but no one had ever laid eyes on the man before. One of the soothsayers speculated that he might be a mago from the vicinity of Armenia, come here be means of magic.
The king asked, "Could the Sleeping Queen's city also be thereabouts?"
An old courtier replied, "We won't know where it is until we look for it. If I were younger, I would go in search of it myself without delay."
Stephan, the eldest son, stepped forward. "If anyone is to set out in search of the city, I am the one to go. It is only fitting that the firstborn put his father's health above all other concerns."
"Dear son," replied the king, "You have my blessing. Take money and horses and everything else you need. I will be expecting you back victorious in three months."
Stephano went to a nearby port and boarded a vessel sailing for the Isle of Buda, where it was to anchor for three hours before continuing on to Armenia. At Buda, he went ashore to see the island. As he strolled about, he met an enchanting and charming lady. He became so engrossed in talking to her that the three hours went by before he knew it. At the appointed time, the ship unfurled its sails and departed without Stephano. Alas, he had forgotten all about the original purpose of the voyage.
When three months were up, with still no sign of Stephano, King Maximus began fearing that the boy was dead. To console him, Gian, the middle boy, volunteered to go in search of his brother as well as the water. After much persuasion, the king consented, although he was fearful something might happen to Gian.
Gian also boarded a boat to Armenia, which was likewise scheduled to stop at the Isle of Buda first. The captain informed Gian to return in three hours. Gian went ashore to look around the island. He strolled into a park of myrtles, cypresses, and laurels, which shaded lagoons of limpid water, stocked with fish of every color of the rainbow. He proceded down a beautiful avenue to a square with a white marble fountain in its center. Encircling the square were monuments and buildings, and in their midst rose a majestic palace with gold and silver columns and crystal walls that sparkled in the sunlight. Gian spied his brother moving about on the other side of one of those crystal walls.
"Stephano!" he cried. "What are you doing here? Why did you not come home? We thought you were dead!" They embraced heartily.
Stephano answered, "I am glad to see you. How is father?"
Gian answered, "He is still blind. Have you forgotten?"
Slapping his forehead, Stephano answered, "How silly of me! Yes, of course he is. But, you must meet my wife. Her name is Lugistella. She is queen of this island and she has two sisters as beautiful as she. If you like one, she is yours."
In short, the three hours went by and ship sailed without Gian. He, too, forgot all about his father and the miraculous water, and became a guest, like his brother, in the crystal palace.
When the three months were up, with no sign of his second son, King Maximus was alarmed and with the entire court, feared the worst. Then Andrew boldly declared he would go in search of his brothers and the Sleeping Queen's magic water.
"So you intend to leave me too?" said the king. "Blind and crushed as I am, I must give up my last son as well?"
Andrew at last revived the king's hope of seeing all three boys back safe and sound in addition to obtaining the healing water. His father consented to Andrew's departure.
The ship dropped anchor at the Isle of Buda, where it would remain for three hours. "You may disembark," the captain told Andrew. "But be back on time if you don't want to be left behind like two other young men who went ashore and have not been heard of since."
Andrew realized the captain was speaking of his brothers, who must be somewhere on the island.
He went ashore and began searching for them. He located them both in the crystal palace. They embraced Andrew on sight, and began describing their heavenly life on the island. "You should say and meet our ladies, they have a sister--"
Andrew cut them off. "You've obviously lost your mind if you can't remember your duty to Father! I intend to find the Sleeping Queen's healing water and nothing can turn me from that resolve--neither riches, nor amusements, nor beautiful ladies!"
At those words, the brothers became silent. Andrew walked away in a huff and returned at once to the ship. The sails were unfurled and favorable winds carried the vessel to Armenia.
As soon as he embarked on Armenian soil, Andrew asked everyone he met where the Sleeping Queen's city was, but apparently no one had ever heard of it. After weeks of vain search, a woman directed him to an old hermit living on a mountaintop. "He's an old, old man, as old as the world itself, by the name of Farfanello. If he doesn't know where this city is, nobody knows."
Andrew climbed the mountain. he found the bearded, decrepit old man in his hut and told him what he was seeking. "Dear youth," said Farfanello, "I have indeed heard of this city, but it is quite far away, over a land and across an ocean. The journey may take almost a month, to say nothing of the perils of sailing those waters. Even if you do get across the water safe and sound, still greater dangers lie in store for you on the Isle of the Sleeping Queen, the very name of which suggests misfortune, since it is also called the Isle of Tears."
Glad to have definite information at last, Andrew embarked at the port of Brindisse. The ocean crossing was hazardous, because huge great white bears, capable of wrecking even big ships, swam in those waters.
Andrew, a courageous hunter, was not afraid and the vessel steered clear of the great white bears' claws and arrived at the Isle of Tears. He instructed the captain to await him for three days. The port looked abandoned and not a sound was to be heard. After Andrew disembarked and had traveled some way, he saw a sentinel holding a lance, but the man was completely motionless. Even though Andrew asked him for directions, the sentinel continued to stand as still and as silent as a statue. Andrew walked on and entered the city. On one side of the street, he saw a cobbler, still and silent, halted in the midst of drawing thread through a shoe. One the other side of the street, a coffeehouse keeper held a pot as though about to pour a lady a cup of coffee. Both the coffeehouse keeper and the lady were mute and motionless. Streets, windows, and shops were full of people, but they all looked like life-like statues in the strangest of postures. Even the horses, dogs, cats, and other creatures were standing dead still in their tracks.
Moving through this thick silence, Andrew came to a splendid palace, adorned with stone figures and tablets commemorating the island's past rulers. On the facade was a frieze full of figures with an inscription in radiant letters of gold: TO HER MAJESTY, THE QUEEN OF LUMINOUS SOULS WHO REIGNS OVER THIS ISLE OF BRUTUS.
"Where could this queen be?" wondered Andrew. "Could she be one and the same as the Sleeping Queen?" He went up a grand alabaster staircase and crossed several halls decorated with bass reliefs. Guards stood at many of the doors, over whom the same spell had been cast as those in the town. In one marble hall, steps led to a dais, on which stood a throne surmounted by a canopy and displaying a diamond-studded coat of arms. A grapevine grew up from outside in the adjoining courtyard. The vine had trailed clear across the room and twined about the throne and canopy, adorning them with clusters of ripe grapes and vineleaves. Outside in the courtyard, an apple orchard of many trees had become rather overgrown. The branches of these trees were quite heavy with ripe fruit. Andrew, who was hungry after so much walking, pulled an apple from one of those branches and bit into it. He'd no sooner done so then his eyesight dimmed and left him altogether.
"Woe is me!" he cried. "How will I get about in this strange country people with nothing but statues?" He began stumbling about the orchard. Suddenly, he tripped and fell in a hole and plummeted through empty space, landing in water over his head. With a few strokes, he came to the surface. The minute his head was out of water, he realized he had regained his eyesight. He was at the bottom of a deep well and high above him was the sky. "So this is the well the mago was referring to," he said to himself. "This water will cure my father." He spied a rope hanging in the well, took hold of it, and climbed out.
It was nighttime, so Andrew looked about for a bed to sleep in. He went back into the palace and eventually found a bedchamber, royally decorated and containing a large bed in which a maiden of divine beauty lay sleeping. The maiden's eyes were closed and her face was peaceful, so Andrew knew she had been put under the spell while she slept. After a little reflection, he undressed and slipped into bed beside her, passing a delightful night without her giving any sign she knew he was there. At daybreak, he jumped out of the bed and wrote her a note, which he left on her bedside table: "To his great joy, Andrew, son of King Maximus, slept in this bed on the 21st of March in the year 203." He signed it and also wrote the name of the city where his father's palace was to be found.
He filled a bottle with the water that restored eyesight and plucked one of the apples that caused blindness and set out for home.
The ship again called at the port of Buda, where Andrew stopped to visit his brothers. He told them of the wonders of the Isle of Tears and the lovely maiden asleep in the bed. Then, he showed them the water which restored eyesight. The two brothers hatched a plot against Andrew. For now, it seemed they remembered their father's plight in full, and they feared his wrath at their odd forgetfullness. They stole the bottle of magic water, leaving in its place an identical bottle filled with ordinary water. They then informed him they would accompany him home and return later to their wives, for they longed to see their father.
No words can describe the joy of King Maximus at the safe return of all three of his sons home. After many hearty embraces, the king asked, "Which one of you was the luckiest?"
Stephano and Gian held their tongues, but Andrew spoke up, "Father, I make bold to say I was, for I found and brought back my lost brothers. I reached the Sleeping Queen's city and got the water that will restore your eyesight. I also got something else amazing and I'm going to show you right this minute how it works."
He pulled out the apple and handed it to his mother to eat. The queen bit into it, and went blind and let out a shriek.
"Don't fear, Mamma,' said Andrew, taking out the bottle, "for a drop of this water will restore you sight and also that of Papa, who's been blind for so long."
Unfortunately, the water came from the bottle substituted by the other brothers, so she did not regain her sight. The queen wept, the king raged, and Andrew trembled in his boots. Then Stephano stepped forward with Gian and said, "This has happened because he didn't find the Sleeping Queen's magic water. We found it ourselves, and here it is." Once the stolen water had touched their eyes, the two old people could see as well again as ever.
A big argument ensued. Andrew called his brothers thieves and traitors, and they turned around and called him a liar and braggart. The king could make neither head nor tail of the dispute, but finally he sided with Stephano and Gian. He ordered Andrew, "Silence, you shameless wretch. You not only had no intention of curing me, but meant to blind your mother as well. Guards, away with this ungrateful creature. Take him to the woods and slay him! Bring me back his heart or more heads will roll!"
The guards dragged off Andrew, screaming and protesting, to a thicket outside the city. Andrew told the palace guards his story and convinced them. These guards had known Andrew since he was a small boy, and they knew him to be a good-hearted and truthful youth. The soldiers made him promise to never come back to town, then set him free. They returned to the king with the heart of a pig, purchased from a farmer and slaughtered on the spot.
On the Isle of Tears, nine months went by and the sleeping maiden gave birth to a fine baby boy. As she brought him forth, she awakened. With the queen now awake, the spell was broken, which Fata Morgana had cast over her out of envy. The whole city awakened and came back to life. The soldiers frozen at attention blinked. The cobbler finished drawing the thread through the shoe. The coffeehouse keeper filled the lady's cup. Dogs wagged their tails and the cats stretched and meowed.
The queen rubbed her eyes and said, "I wonder who on earth was so bold to make his way to the island and sleep in this room and thereby free me and my subjects from the spell we were under." She spied the note on her bedside table. So the queen knew the visitor had been Andrew, son of King Maximus. Right away, she wrote to the king to send his son to her without delay, or else she would make war on their country.
When King Maximus got that letter, he called in Stephano and Gian and read it to them. Neither one of them knew what to say. At last, Stephano spoke. "We'll never know what this is all about until somebody goes to the queen for an explanation. I'll go myself and see what I can find out."
Stephano's trip was easier, since Fata Morgana's spell had been broken and all the great white bears had disappeared. He went before the queen and introduced himself as Prince Andrew, who had come to the Isle of Tears to get the healing waters from her well to cure the blindness of King Maximus.
The queen, who was naturally distrustful, began to question him. "What day did you come here the first time? How did you find the city? Where was I? What happened to you in the palace? What do you see now that you didn't see before?" Though Andrew had described to his brothers the wonders of a land where all animals and people stood still as statues, he had left a few details out of his story. In particular, he said nothing about sleeping in the bed with the beautiful maiden, or leaving her the note. Stephano soon got all confused and started stammering, so the queen knew right away he was lying. She had his head chopped off and stuck on a spike atop the city gate, with the inscription: IF YOU LIE, THIS IS HOW YOU WILL DIE.
King Maximus got a second letter from the sometime Sleeping Queen, saying if he didn't for the sake of honor send Andrew to her forthwith, troops were ready to move against him and reduce his kingdom to ashes. Long regretful of having Andrew slain, the king wailed to Gian, "Now what shall we do? How shall we tell her that Andrew is dead and why hasn't Stephano returned?"
Gian volunteered to go to the sometime Sleeping Queen. He reached the island, but the sight of Stephano's head on the city gate told him all he needed to know.
He returned home at full speed. "Father!" he exclaimed. "We are done for. Stephano is dead and his head is on a spike atop the city gate. If I had gone in, there would have been another head next to it."
King Maximus was beside himself with grief. "Stephano dead? Now I know for sure that Andrew was innocent and all this has happened to punish me. Tell me the truth Gian. Confess your treachery before we all die!"
"Our wives are to blame!" said Gian. "They enspelled us and thus we never went to the Sleeping Queen ourselves. Stephano thought to take the magic waters. We put a bottle of ordinary water in place of Andrew's healing liquid."
Railing, weeping, and pulling out his hair, the king summoned the palace guards to take him to the unmarked grave where Andrew was buried. Among the guards, this order caused great alarm. The king noticed it and was filled with new hope. "Out with it! I want the truth! Whatever it is you're guilty of, I give you my royal word that you are pardoned."
Trembling in their boots, the guards admitted they had disobeyed the order to slay Andrew, as they did not want innocent blood upon their hands. To their great astonishment, the king began madly hugging and kissing them.
Posted at every street corner was an announcement that whoever found Andrew would be richly rewarded for the rest of his life.
Andrew returned, to the joy of his old father and the court. He set out at once for the Isle of Tears, where he was given a hero's welcome.
"Andrew, who freed me and my people," said the queen. "You will be my husband and king forever." For months afterwards, all that was ever heard upon the island were songs of joy. So it was then called the Isle of Happiness.
Myth's Notes
This story was retold from a folktale collected by Italo Calvino, Italian Folktales (1956), translated into English by George Martin (1980). Calvino collected the story, Calvino #61, from Montale Pistoiese, Italy. English versions of this story are known as Sleeping Beauty, Thorn Rosa, or Rosenthorn and involve a sleeping princess rather than a queen. In this tale, Fata Morgana is none other than Morgan Le Fey from Aurthurian legend. The queen's land is the island of Brutus, or Brigantia, also known as Hyperborea, "beyond-the-North-Wind." The Queen's palace is at fabled Avalon, the Orchard of Enchanted Apples. The well is none other than the Grail's Well in England, which has healing properties.
The culture of ancient Italy and Rome influenced much of Europe. However, this Italian folktale is an example of legends traveling the opposite direction as from Rome towards the ends of its Empire. During the11th century, the Norman knights brought the Arthurian legends with them to Italy and Sciliy. The Arthurian legends were not widely known outside the British Isles until the Norman invasions.