The Princess and the Pea

Once there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess, but she had to be a real princess. He traveled all over the world to find one. He met a lot of princesses, but there was always something wrong. Some were too proud, some were too silly, and with others he simply couldn't be sure. So he came home alone and very sad.

One evening, there was a terrible storm. There was a lot of thunder and lightning, and the rain came down in buckets. Suddenly, someone knocked at the town gate, and the old king went to open it himself.

A young woman was standing outside. She was wet from head to toe. Water ran from her hair and her clothes, into her shoes and out again at the heels. She didn't look like a princess at all. Still, she said she was a real one.

The old queen had an idea, but she kept it to herself. She went into the guest room and took all the sheets and blankets off the bed. On the bottom, she put one small, dry pea. Then she put twenty mattresses on top of the pea, and twenty soft feather beds on top of the mattresses. The bed was so high that the princess needed a ladder to get into it.

In the morning, everyone asked her how she slept. "Oh, it was awful!" she said. "I hardly slept at all. Something in that bed was as hard as a rock, and now I'm covered in bruises."

Then they knew she was a real princess. Only a real princess could feel one little pea through twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds. Nobody else could have such delicate skin. So the prince married her, because now he was sure.

And the pea? It went to the royal museum. It's still there today, if no one has stolen it.