The Princess and the Pea

Once upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry, and nothing would do but a real princess.

So he traveled the whole world over to look for one. There were princesses in every country he came to, but whether they were real princesses he could never find out. There was always something about them that was not quite as it should be.

Home he came at last, and he was very sad, because he did so want a real princess.

Then one evening a dreadful storm blew up. The thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and the rain came down in sheets.

In the middle of it all somebody knocked at the town gate, and the old king went down himself to open it.

A princess was standing outside in the dark. But oh, what a sight the wind and the rain had made of her! The water ran out of her hair and down her clothes, into the toes of her shoes and out again at the heels.

And still she said that she was a real princess.

“We shall soon see about that,” thought the old queen.

But she said nothing at all. She went into the bedchamber, took every sheet and blanket off the bedstead, and laid one small pea on the bare boards.

On the pea she piled twenty mattresses, and on the twenty mattresses twenty eiderdown quilts. Then she smoothed the covers down and wished her guest a good night.

There the princess had to lie the whole night through.

In the morning they asked her how she had slept.

“Oh, dreadfully!” she said. “I hardly closed my eyes all night. Goodness knows what was in that bed. I was lying on something hard, and I am black and blue all over. It was quite horrible!”

Then they knew that she was a real princess, for she had felt the pea through twenty mattresses and twenty eiderdown quilts. Nobody but a real princess could be as delicate as that.

So the prince married her, for now he was certain of what he had. And the pea was put into the royal museum, where it can be seen to this day, unless somebody has stolen it.

There now. That is a true story.