Through the magic of dance, she would move with the grace of Snow White and be clothed as beautifully as Cinderella at the ball. Strong swains, handsome like Prince Siegfried in "Swan Lake," would lift her off her feet in pas de deux that would end in applause.

Every day she went to regular school and then ballet school. She endured long railroad commutes to reach the best teachers.

And her dream came true. Peggy, officially named Margaret Severin-Hansen, grew up to become an apprentice, then a company member, then a soloist and now a principal ballerina with Carolina Ballet.

This week she takes the stage in "Sleeping Beauty." Little girls may watch her dance the part of Aurora, one of the greatest roles a ballerina can land, and spin their own ballerina dreams.

But "Sleeping Beauty," like most fairy tales, has a dark side, with grief, a curse and a ferocious fight for a happy ending. Ballet dancers, too, are destined to thorns and hardships worthy of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.

Everyone knows the story of "Sleeping Beauty." Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm transformed it from folktale to literature. Marius Petipa and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky elevated it in a quintessential ballet. And Disney took it to the masses in an animated film.

Carolina Ballet dancers who will perform the tale to a mix of Petipa's and artistic director Robert Weiss' choreography discuss the fairy-tale qualities of their lives on stage.

Margaret Severin-Hansen

From: Long Island, N.Y.

Role: Princess Aurora

Fantasy: "I was always told, 'It's going to be hard work; it will never be easy,' " she says.

Still, when she saw American Ballet Theatre and other companies perform in New York City, she couldn't help but imagine herself in every lead role.

Thorns: Every morning, she is greeted by pain somewhere in her body.

Wish: As a principal dancer, her first wish has already come true. If granted a second, she'd like ballerinas to get a fraction of the respect that major league athletes get.

"Dancers work as hard, if not harder, because we have to put our heart and soul into dancing, and sports people get paid for their bodies and their athleticism, which dancers have as well. I love sports and I watch it all the time. But I wish dancers got the same praise and recognition."

Timour Bourtasenkov

From: Moldova, in the former Soviet Union

Role: Prince

Fantasy: Bourtasenkov says he began living it at age 10.

"For almost 30 years, I've been in la-la dreamland," he says, recalling globe-hopping tours in his youth with the Moldavian Opera Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet and other companies. "It was a real dreamland in those days."

Thorns: Age and aching joints, which inevitably lead to the end of dancers' painfully short careers.

Wish: A body younger than his 39 years.

"If I would have a magic butcher, I would ask for a new pair of legs."

Hong Yang

From: Beijing, China

Role: Lilac Fairy

Fantasy: "When I was little and saw performances, I thought, 'The girls, they are fairies, they are not human beings.' ... But when I would start learning more and more, I thought 'Oh, my God, this is not fairy tale anymore.'"

Thorns: The difficulty of learning her art. Yang says she was ready to quit on her second day of dance school.

"Why I didn't go home? Because I don't want my classmates who's in my hometown saying, 'Oh, because the school fired you, you have to go home.'"

Wish: Yang has been scared of turns -- chainés, pirouettes, sauts de basque -- ever since she was a little girl and her father used to spin her around. "It really makes me sick," she says.

Her wish? "To become a turner."

Marcelo Martinez

From: Paraguay

Role: The Raven, "familiar" to the evil fairy Carabosse

Fantasy: It looked much like Martinez's first big job, with Washington Ballet.

"Always when I talked with people and I'd say, 'I'm a dancer. I'm dancing with Washington Ballet,' everybody would turn and say, 'Oh, wow! You dance at Kennedy Center?' That's the idea I'd had, of being involved with a higher society class and sponsors and going to parties and all that."

Thorns: Martinez faced his when he first began studying. Broke, starving and fed up, he almost quit. Then he confided in a teacher -- a fairy godmother of sorts, he says fondly -- and she helped him cope.