![]() The story was first written down in 1835 by Hans Christian Andersen, who claimed to have heard it in his childhood. The prince and the princess duly get married, the pea is put on display in a museum, and that’s the end of this strange little tale. The prince and his mother take this as proof that this young woman is a real princess, since only someone of truly royal blood could be so tender and sensitive to have been troubled by a pea concealed under twenty mattresses. She hardly got a wink of sleep all night. In the morning, her hosts ask the young princess whether she slept well, and she tells them she passed a rotten night because there was something hard underneath her in the bed, and her body was black and blue by the time the morning came. ![]() The woman claims to be a princess, so the prince’s mother takes a pea and places it under twenty mattresses in the bed where the princess is to spend the night. ![]() ![]() This pickiness when it comes to courting looks set to end in perpetual bachelorhood, until one day, on a dark and stormy night, a young woman arrives at his castle, asking to take shelter inside until the storm has passed. He goes on an extensive search to find his royal bride, but he cannot be completely sure that any of the women he meets are bona fide princesses. It is easy to summarise ‘The Princess and the Pea’: a prince wishes to marry a princess, but he wants to make sure she is a real princess, rather than one of the dozens of royal pretenders who appear to inhabit the realm.
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