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. Its 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.