The Princess and the Pea

Once upon a time, there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess, but a real princess. He went around the Earth to find one but there was always something wrong; there was no shortage of princesses, but were they real princesses? It was difficult to appreciate; always one thing or the other didn't seem perfect to him. He returned home very sad, he would have liked to meet a real princess.

One evening, in terrible weather, with lightning and thunder, and torrents of rain that it was frightening, there was a knock at the city gate and the old king himself went to open it. It was a princess who was there, outside. But great gods! what did she look like in this rain, in this weather? The water flowed from her hair and clothes, entered through the toes of her shoes, and exited through the heel...and she pretended to be a real princess!
“We'll see about that,” thought the old queen, but she said nothing. She went into the bedroom, removed all the bedding, and put a pea at the bottom of the bed; she then took twenty mattresses which she piled on the little pea, and, on top, she put another twenty eider feather eiderdowns. It was on this that the princess was to sleep that night. In the morning, she was asked how she had slept.
“Bad,” she replied, “I hardly slept a wink all night. God knows what was in that bed. I was lying on something so hard that I had bruises and black spots all over my body! It's terrible! »
The Princess and the Pea - illustration 1
Then they recognized that she was a real princess since, through the twenty mattresses and twenty eider feather eiderdowns, she had smelled like a pea. Such sensitive skin could only be that of a true princess.
The prince therefore took her as his wife, now sure of having found a real princess, and the little pea was exhibited in the cabinet of art treasures, where it can still be seen if no one has taken it away. And this is a real story.
Collective, Traditional tales, ill. Julie 

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