By Nate Feldman
The Sleeping Mountains is a short play found in "The Big Book of Folktale Plays," an anthology of children's plays adapted from a variety of cultures, which is edited by Sylvia E. Kamerman.
In the play, King Papantco, leader of the Toltecs, is in conflict with King Ixtli, leader of the Chichimecs. Ixtli arrives at the Courtyard of the Sun to meet with Papantco, upset that people from the latter's kingdom are using his streams for fishing. Meanwhile, Papantco's daughter, eager to make peace between the kingdoms, meets with Ixtli's son. They both regret the fight between their fathers and hope for peace and understanding. They fall in love with another.
The princess is supposed to be married to Jaguar, the son of the High Priest of Papantco's kingdom. When he learns that the princess has fallen in love with the Chichimec prince, he devises a plan to stop it by placing a magic spell on them. He follows them to their meeting place and scatters magic powder over them, freezing them.
An Old Sorceress, who witnesses everything, returns to the royal court and punishes Jaguar and the High Priest for their actions, turning them into animals. Because of the kingdom's unwillingness to work with one another, she also turns the Prince and Princess into side-by-side mountains, who will not return to human form until their families make peace with one another.
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