The Princess and The Pea
A long time ago, there was a prince who wanted to find a princess to marry. However, he wanted to make sure that she was a true princess. The prince went on a big adventure to search all around the world for a real princess. But no matter where he went, he couldn’t find exactly what he was looking for. There were lots of princesses, but the prince had a hard time figuring out if they were truly real princesses or not. No matter how many princesses the prince met, there was always something that wasn’t quite right about them. Something just didn’t match what a real princess should be like. The prince felt sad when he couldn’t find a real princess to marry, so he returned home without one.
One evening, an awfully bad storm happened. There was loud thunder and bright lightning, and the rain fell super hard. All of a sudden, there was loud knocking at the gate of the city, and the old king went to see who was there and to open the gate.
There was a princess waiting outside the gate, but she looked very different because the wind and rain had messed up her appearance. Water was dripping from her hair and clothes, and it even filled up her shoes and flowed out of them. Despite this, she claimed that she was a true princess.
The old queen didn’t say anything but thought to herself, “Let’s see if she’s really a princess.” Then, she went to the bedroom, removed all the bedding, and placed a tiny pea on the bottom of the bed frame. She piled up twenty mattresses on top of the pea, and on top of the mattresses, she placed twenty eider-down beds.
The princess had to sleep on top of all the mattresses and beds with the tiny pea underneath her all night. The next morning, they asked her how she slept.
The princess replied, “I slept very poorly! I couldn’t really close my eyes because there was something hard in the bed. I’m bruised all over my body, and I have no idea what was in that bed. It was terrible!”
They now knew for sure that she was a real princess because she could feel the tiny pea even though it was hidden under twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds.
Only a real princess could have such a delicate sense to feel the tiny pea under all those mattresses and beds.
The prince married the princess because he knew she was a real one. They even put the tiny pea on display in a museum, and it might still be there today if nobody took it.
And this is a real story!
