Sleeping Handsome

While the princess was away managing the farm business in Eastern Samar, she left her husband, Sleeping Handsome, and their three children in the care of her mother.

Sleeping Handsome wasn't lazy; he was cursed. Years ago he pricked his finger on a rusty sickle and fell into a hundred-year sleep. The princess's true love kiss finally woke him.

He slept through the day. When evening came, he rose and worked. His nights belonged to the children and wrote poetry and prose that readers bought.

His mother-in-law, Diana Gilophay, was an ogress. By day she appeared human; by evening she resumed her true ogress form.

She hated that her daughter married "a man who sleeps too much" instead of a general or a politician.

One harvest season, Diana Gilophay ordered the cook:

"Kill my son-in-law. Prepare him for dinner tonight."

The cook had a kind heart. He hid Sleeping Handsome in the rice granary and served the ogress roasted goat instead.

Days later, Diana Gilophay knew. In her gut, she felt it; she had devoured the beast, not a man.

The evil mother-in-law flew into a rage when she learned she had eaten goat meat instead of her son-in-law.

"You tricked me!" she shrieked. "I was cheated of my feast!"

She ordered her soldiers to seize her son-in-law and cast him into the old well behind the farm. It was a pit full of vipers and snakes.

"If you are not worthy of my family, then become food for the earth!" she screamed.

The ground trembled violently as a strong earthquake struck.

Diana Gilophay slipped and fell into the well herself. The evil mother-in-law was bitten by the most venomous snake and suffered excruciating pain from the venom until the ogress finally died.

The princess returned home only to discover that her mother had tried to devour her husband. She further learned that her mother had perished from the bite of a poisonous snake. Tears streamed down her face.

The princess ran to Sleeping Handsome and kissed his forehead.

"Are you still awake?"

"I am," he smiled. "Because of you."

And so, the princess, Sleeping Handsome, and their children kept the farm.

They planted, harvested, and lived peacefully with no ogress at the dinner table.