Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know

<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></SPAN>CHAPTER XXI</h2> <!-- Page 294 --><SPAN name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></SPAN> <h3>THE PRINCESS ON THE PEA</h3> <p>There was once a prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she was to be a <i>real</i> princess. So he travelled about, all through the world, to find a real one, but everywhere there was something in the way. There were princesses enough, but whether they were <i>real</i> princesses he could not quite make out: there was always something that did not seem quite right. So he came home again, and was quite sad: for he wished so much to have a real princess. One evening a terrible storm came on. It lightened and thundered, the rain streamed down; it was quite fearful! Then there was a knocking at the town gate, and the old king went out to open it.</p> <p>It was a princess who stood outside the gate. But, mercy! how she looked, from the rain and the rough weather! The water ran down from her hair and her clothes; it ran in at the points of her shoes, and out at the heels; and yet she declared that she was a real princess.</p> <p>"Yes, we will soon find that out," thought the old queen. But she said nothing, only went into the bedchamber, took all the bedding off, and put a pea on the flooring of the bedstead; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them upon the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds upon the mattresses. On this the princess had to lie all night. In the morning she was asked how she had slept.<!-- Page 295 --><SPAN name="Page_295" id="Page_295"></SPAN></p> <p>"Oh, miserably!" said the princess. "I scarcely closed my eyes all night long. Goodness knows what was in my bed. I lay upon something hard, so that I am black and blue all over. It is quite dreadful!"</p> <p>Now they saw that she was a real princess, for through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds she had felt the pea. No one but a real princess could be so delicate.</p> <p>So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a true princess; and the pea was put in the museum, and it is there now, unless somebody has carried it off.</p> <p>Look you, this is a true story.</p> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />