There was once a prince who wanted to marry a princess. But she must be a real princess, mind you. So he traveled all around the world to find one, but everywhere there was always something in the way. Not that there was any lack of princesses, but whether they were real princesses he could not seem to make out; there was always something that did not seem quite right. So home he came, quite out of spirits, for he did wish so much to have a real princess.
One evening a terrible storm came on. It thundered and lightened, and the rain poured down in torrents; indeed, it was a fearful night. In the midst of it there came a knocking at the palace gate, and the old king went out to open it.
It was a princess who stood outside. But, oh, dear! what a state she was in from the rain and storm! The water was streaming from her hair and clothes; it ran in at the tips of her shoes and out at the heels; yet she insisted she was a real princess.
“Very well,” thought the old queen; “that we shall presently see.” She said nothing, but she went into the bedroom and took off all the bedding, and then laid a pea on the framework of the bedstead. Having done this, she took twenty mattresses and laid them upon the pea, and twenty eider-down quilts on top of the mattresses.
The princess lay upon this bed all night. In the morning she was asked how she had slept.
“Oh, miserably!” said the princess. “I scarcely closed my eyes the whole night through. I’m sure I don’t know what was in the bed. I lay upon something so hard that I am black and blue all over from it. It is dreadful!”
Now they knew at once that she was a real princess, since through twenty mattresses and through twenty eider-down quilts she had felt the pea. None but a real princess could be so sensitive.
So the prince took her for his wife, for he knew that at last in her he had found a real princess. And the pea was put in the Royal Museum, where it is still to be seen unless some one has stolen it.
And this, mind you, is a true story.