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Once upon
a time...
There was once upon a time a Prince who wanted to marry a
Princess, but she must be a true Princess. So he travelled through
the whole world to find one, but there was always something against
each. There were plenty of Princesses, but he could not find out if
they were true Princesses. In every case there was some little
defect, which showed the genuine article was not yet found. So he
came home again in very low spirits, for he had wanted very much to
have a true Princess. One night there was a dreadful storm; it
thundered and lightened and the rain streamed down in torrents. It
was fearful! There was a knocking heard at the Palace gate, and the
old King went to open it.
There stood a Princess outside the gate; but oh, in what a sad
plight she was from the rain and the storm! The water was running
down from her hair and her dress into the points of her shoes and
out at the heels again. And yet she said she was a true Princess!
'Well, we shall soon find that!' thought the old Queen. But she said
nothing, and went into the sleeping-room, took off all the
bed-clothes, and laid a pea on the bottom of the bed. Then she put
twenty mattresses on top of the pea, and twenty eider-down quilts on
the top of the mattresses. And this was the bed in which the
Princess was to sleep.
The next morning she was asked how she had slept.
'Oh, very badly!' said the Princess. 'I scarcely closed my eyes all
night! I am sure I don't know what was in the bed. I laid on
something so hard that my whole body is black and blue. It is
dreadful!'
Now they perceived that she was a true Princess, because she had
felt the pea through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down
quilts.
No one but a true Princess could be so sensitive.
So the Prince married her, for now he knew that at last he had got
hold of a true Princess. And the pea was put into the Royal Museum,
where it is still to be seen if no one has stolen it. Now this is a
true story.
How to Tell a True
Princess
from the Yellow Fairy Book
Story Edited
by Andrew Lang |
