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"Sleeping Beauty" (French: La Belle au bois dormant, or The Beauty Sleeping in the Wood[1][a]; German: Dornröschen, or Little Briar Rose), also titled in English as The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods, is a fairy tale about a princess cursed by an evil fairy to sleep for a hundred years before being awakened by a handsome prince.

In the earliest versions, after the main character falls asleep, she is discovered in her castle by a wandering king, who "carrie[s] her to a bed, where he gather[s] the first fruits of love." He abandons her there after the assault and she later gives birth to twins while still unconscious.

The Aarne-Thompson classification system for fairy tales lists Sleeping Beauty as a Type 410: it includes a princess who is magically forced into sleep and later woken, reversing the magic.[12] The fairy tale has been adapted countless times throughout history and retold by modern storytellers across a variety of media.