The Princess and the Pea

Once upon a time there was a prince who wanted

to marry a princess; but she would have to be a

real princess. He travelled all over the world to find

one, but nowhere could he get what he wanted.

There were princesses enough, but it was difficult

to find out whether they were real ones. There

was always something about them that was not as

it should be. So he came home again and was

sad, for he would have liked very much to have a real princess.

One evening a terrible storm came on; there was

thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down

in torrents. Suddenly a knocking was heard at the city gate,

and the old king went to open it.

It was a princess standing out there in front of the gate.

But, good gracious! what a sight the rain and the wind

had made her look. The water ran down from her hair

and clothes; it ran down into the toes of her shoes and

out again at the heels. And yet she said that she was a real princess.

Well, we'll soon find that out, thought the old queen.

But she said nothing, went into the bed-room, took all the

bedding off the bedstead, and laid a pea on the bottom;

then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea,

and then twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses.

On this the princess had to lie all night.

In the morning she was asked how she had slept.

"Oh, very badly!" said she. "I have scarcely closed

my eyes all night. Heaven only knows what was in

the bed, but I was lying on something hard, so that I

am black and blue all over my body. It's horrible!"

Now they knew that she was a real princess because

she had felt the pea right through the twenty

mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds.

Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that.

So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew

that he had a real princess; and the pea was put in the museum,

where it may still be seen, if no one has stolen it.

There, that is a true story.

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