The Baby Princess
Once upon a time, there lived a King and a Queen. The king was handsome and wealthy. The queen was kind and beautiful. The king looked after the people of his kingdom with utmost care and the queen was no lesser to him in virtues.
Unlike most of the other royal families where marrying twice or thrice was common, the couple loved each other deeply and stayed devoted to one another. In several years of their marriage, there was nothing that came in between them that lessened their happiness with one another.
In spite of their happy marriage, the couple’s only grief was that they had no children.
In want of a child, the couple went to many religious places and offered countless prayers in order to be blessed with a child.
Though they had all the riches in the world, the grief that they were childless was much bigger than all the comforts. As the days passed by the queen was longing to become a mother and the worry started to show on her lovely face.
After a few years, their prayers were heard and the Queen gave birth to a beautiful girl child. The royal couple’s joy knew no bounds when they held their much I awaited child in their hands. The child , looked so beautiful that every one who saw her commented that the couple had received a beautiful and precious gilt that was by all means worth their long wait.
As soon as the baby’s birth was announced in the kingdom, the people danced with happiness. They all cheered with one another and tossed their hats in delight. Everyone embraced one another cheerfully and said, “Our queen has a beautiful daughter. Long live our little princess.” Such was the eagerness with which the whole kingdom awaited the moment.
Soon, the baby was to be named. After considering and dropping many beautiful names, the couple decided to name her, ‘Aurora’ which meant ‘The Dawn.’ They thought that the name suited their little beauty perfectly because she was much more beautiful than the dawn itself.
The next event was to get the baby christened. The King wanted it to be a grand affair. The proud parents made a list of all those who had to be invited and personally sent their invitation for the Christening ceremony of their baby.
Among the invitees were the fairies too. It was a custom in practice those days, to invite fairies to the christening ceremony so that they bestowed on the little babies their magical, precious wishes and gifts. It was a belief that the baby who had fairies as her godmothers would grow up with all possible perfections and would be the luckiest of all.
The King and the queen decided to invite as many fairies as possible for the ceremony. They made a list of all the fairies they could think of but could find only seven. However, they were happy with it too because they considered ‘seven a lucky number. In spite of taking several precautions, the couple unfortunately forgot to invite an old fairy. That fairy was not only very old but also moved out of public sight long long ago.
Every one who knew her thought that she either went away to a far-off place or she was dead. That was one of the reasons why the king and the queen forgot about the old fairy.