the real princess by hans christian andersen

The following morning their young guest tells her hosts she simply could not sleep because there was a terrible lump in her bed. The prince's mother decides to test her claim by placing one ( or three) peas on her bedstead, underneath twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds. One evening, a young woman claiming to be a princess seeks shelter from a storm in the prince's castle. It has been adapted to various media including musical comedy, an animated feature film and television drama.Ī prince at the age of marriage travels about the world searching for a real princess but returns home disappointed. The tale likely had its source in folk material although the original source of the story is a bit obscure. So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a real princess and the pea was put in the museum, where it may still be seen, if no one has stolen it.'The Princess and the Pea' (Danish: 'Prindsessen paa ærten' 'Prinsessen på ærten' in modern orthography) is a Fairy Tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen about a young woman whose claim to being a real princess is tested by placing a pea under her mattresses. Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that. Now they knew that she was a real princess because she had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was lying on something hard, so that I am black and blue all over my body. I have scarcely closed my eyes all night. In the morning she was asked how she had slept. On this the princess had to lie all night. But she said nothing, went into the bed-room, took all the bedding off the bedstead, and laid a pea on the bottom then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses. Well, we'll soon find that out, thought the old queen. And yet she said that she was a real princess.

The water ran down from her hair and clothes it ran down into the toes of her shoes and out again at the heels.

But, good gracious! what a sight the rain and the wind had made her look. It was a princess standing out there in front of the gate. Suddenly a knocking was heard at the city gate, and the old king went to open it. One evening a terrible storm came on there was thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in torrents. So he came home again and was sad, for he would have liked very much to have a real princess. There was always something about them that was not as it should be. There were princesses enough, but it was difficult to find out whether they were real ones. He travelled all over the world to find one, but nowhere could he get what he wanted.

ONCE upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess but she would have to be a real princess.

The real princess by hans christian andersen