Sleeping Beauty: The True Story of the Princess Who Slept for Ten Years

Once upon a time — in real life — there was a girl who simply wouldn’t wake up.

Her name was Ewa Pihl, and she lived in Sweden in the 19th century. One morning in 1876, she went to bed after complaining of a terrible headache… and didn’t open her eyes again.

Doctors were baffled. Her pulse was weak, her breathing shallow, but she wasn’t dead. Her parents tried everything — loud noises, smelling salts, even small electric shocks — but Ewa slept on, unresponsive, as the years passed.

She became known as “The Sleeping Girl of Oknö.” Newspapers wrote about her as if she were enchanted. People traveled miles just to see her pale face and still hands. Some believed she was cursed. Others whispered that she was in contact with the divine.

But what no one could explain was that her body didn’t decay. Her skin stayed soft, her hair continued to grow. Her mother combed it every morning and spoke to her as if she were still alive.

After ten years, Ewa finally opened her eyes. But the girl who woke up wasn’t quite the same.

She didn’t remember the passage of time. She said she had dreamed of a world filled with golden light and voices calling her name. When asked if she had seen heaven, she simply smiled and said, “It was warm.”

Historians now think Ewa suffered from a rare neurological condition called encephalitis lethargica — known to cause “sleeping sickness.” During the early 1900s, thousands across Europe fell into similar comas that lasted years. Some even woke up decades later, trapped in bodies that had aged without them.

The Brothers Grimm likely heard tales like Ewa’s while collecting folklore. In their Sleeping Beauty, the princess pricks her finger and falls into a century-long slumber — a story of beauty, tragedy, and suspended time.

But unlike the fairy tale, Ewa Pihl didn’t wake up to a prince or a happy ending. She lived quietly for the rest of her life, refusing to talk about her “dream.”

When she died years later, her gravestone read only:

“Here lies Ewa — who once slept for ten years.”