豌豆公主

There was once a prince who wanted to marry a princess – but she had to be a real princess. He travelled all over the world to find one. He met plenty of princesses, but there was always something about each of them that wasn't quite right. In the end, he came home feeling very disappointed. One evening, there was a terrible storm. Thunder crashed, lightning flashed and the rain poured down. In the middle of it all, someone knocked at the castle gate, and the old king went to open it himself. Standing outside was a young woman. She was soaking wet. Water was streaming from her hair and her clothes, and running in at the toes of her shoes and out at the heels. Yet she said she was a real princess. "Well, we'll soon find out about that," thought the old queen. She didn't say a word, but she went into the guest room, took all the bedding off the bed and put a single pea on the base of the bed. Then she piled twenty mattresses on top of the pea, and twenty thick feather quilts on top of the mattresses. That was where the princess had to sleep. In the morning, they asked her how she had slept. "Oh, terribly!" she said. "I hardly closed my eyes all night. Goodness knows what was in that bed. I was lying on something hard, and now I'm black and blue all over. It was awful!" Then they knew that she must be a real princess, because she had felt the pea through twenty mattresses and twenty feather quilts. Only a real princess could have such delicate skin. So the prince married her, because now he knew he had found a real princess. And the pea was put in a museum, where you can still see it today – unless someone has taken it.