The Princess and the Pea

Once upon a time, there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess. But she had to be a real princess.

So he travelled all around the world to find one.

He met princesses in castles and princesses in palaces. He met tall princesses, small princesses, princesses who sang and princesses who danced. But with every one of them, there was something that didn't seem quite right. He could never be sure that she was a real princess.

At last he came home again, feeling rather sad.

A knock in the storm

One evening, there was a terrible storm.

Thunder crashed. Lightning flashed. The rain poured down in buckets, and the wind howled around the palace towers.

Suddenly, there came a knocking at the city gate. Knock, knock, knock.

The old king went down to open it himself.

Standing outside was a girl. And oh, what a sight she was! Rain ran down her hair and into her shoes. Her dress was soaked through. Water dripped from the end of her nose and the tips of her fingers.

"Good evening," she said politely. "I am a princess. May I come in out of the storm?"

"A princess?" thought the queen, who had come down too. "We'll soon see about that."

The queen's secret test

The queen said nothing to anybody. She went quietly up to the guest bedroom.

She took all the bedding off the bed. Then, right in the middle of the bare bed, she put one single, small, dried pea.

On top of the pea, she piled twenty mattresses.

And on top of the twenty mattresses, she piled twenty soft feather quilts.

The bed was now so tall that the princess needed a ladder to climb into it. That was where she was to sleep that night.

The morning after

In the morning, the king, the queen and the prince sat down to breakfast. The princess came in, rubbing her eyes.

"How did you sleep, my dear?" asked the queen sweetly.

"Oh, terribly!" said the princess. "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 simply dreadful!"

The queen smiled a very big smile.

Only a real princess could feel one tiny pea through twenty mattresses and twenty feather quilts. Nobody but a real princess could be as delicate as that.

The prince was overjoyed. At last he had found a real princess! He asked her to marry him, and she said yes.

They were married, and they lived happily ever after.

And the pea? It was put in a glass case in the royal museum, where you can still see it today, unless someone has taken it.

There, that is a true story!

About this story

This fairy tale was written by Hans Christian Andersen of Denmark, one of the most famous storytellers in the world. It was first published in 1835, in his very first book of fairy tales. Andersen ended his story with the playful lines about the pea in the museum, and so does this version. This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.