The Princess and the Pea

There was once a prince who hoped to marry a princess. He wanted to meet a real princess, so he travelled from one country to another, searching carefully.

He met many princesses, but he could never feel certain. At last he returned home, quiet and disappointed, and the palace settled around him once more.

One evening, a great storm swept over the city. Thunder rolled, lightning flashed, and rain drummed upon the roofs. Then someone knocked at the city gate.

The old king went down and opened it himself.

Outside stood a princess. The wind had tossed her hair, the rain had soaked her clothes, and water had run into her shoes. She looked tired and cold, but she spoke politely and said that she was a real princess.

The king welcomed her inside, where it was warm and dry.

The old queen listened, but she said nothing. She went quietly to the guest room, removed all the bedding, and placed one little pea upon the bedstead.

Over the pea she laid twenty mattresses. Over the mattresses she laid twenty soft eider-down beds. The pile rose higher and higher, like a small, cosy hill.

That was where the princess slept.

The storm passed. The palace became still. Yet the princess turned and shifted through the night, unable to rest.

In the morning, the queen asked, “How did you sleep?”

“Very badly,” the princess replied honestly. “There was something small and hard beneath the bed. I hardly slept at all.”

Everyone in the palace was astonished. The princess had felt one tiny pea beneath twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds. By the old queen's unusual test, they decided that she truly was a princess.

The prince and princess were delighted to meet one another, and in time they chose to marry. The little pea was placed safely in the museum, where visitors could marvel at the tiny object beneath that very tall bed.

And so the story of the princess, the storm, and the smallest of peas was remembered.

The moral of the story is: a title or a test cannot tell us who a person truly is. Kindness, honesty, and a warm welcome matter far more than one tiny pea.