Spindle's End

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Spindle's End is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty by author Robin McKinley. In McKinley's version of the classic fairy tale, a wicked fairy named Pernicia appears on the princess' name-day and places a curse on the baby, claiming that the child will, on her 21st birthday, prick her finger on a spindle and fall into deathly sleep. The cursed princess is rescued on her name-day and secretly taken away by a young fairy, Katriona, to her village, a town called Foggy Bottom, located in the damp and swampy section of the country known as The Gig. There Katriona and her aunt (affectionately known as Aunt) raise the princess as an ordinary village maiden, naming her Rosie after the last of the princess' twenty-one names.

Throughout the book, Rosie grows from a headstrong, stubborn child into an intelligent and courageous young woman. With the help of a rare talent--beast-speech, a small bit of magic unknowingly passed on from Katriona--and the silent encouragement of the town's taciturn blacksmith, Narl, Rosie becomes a talented and well-known horse leech, more inclined to wear breeches and whittle spindle ends than wear dresses and practice embroidery. However, when Rosie is 20 years old, Ikor appears, a mysterious and powerful fairy who reveals to Rosie that she is actually the country's hidden princess, and announces a plan to defeat Pernicia, once and for all.