The Princess and the Pea

From Freepedia

The Princess and the Pea, is a Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, first published in 1835 and also known as The Real Princess. It was part of Andersen's first volume of fairy tales Eventyr, fortalte for Børn (Fairy tales, Told for Children) as Prinsessen På Ærten.

Plot synopsis

Once upon a time there was a prince who lived in a wealthy kingdom. When he had reached the proper age his mother the queen decided the time was right to find a bride. The prince however was determined not to marry just any girl, and decided that his future wife should be a "real" princess. So he travelled the world and sought in all the kingdoms and met with all the princesses, until at last he still wasn't satisfied.

Then, one stormy night, a girl came knocking at the castle door who claimed she was a true princess. Although no one believed her, she was invited in to stay for the night. The queen then planned to test the young girl's claim and 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. On this the princess had to lie all night. The next morning when the girl woke up, the queen asked how she slept.

"Oh, very badly!" she said "I have scarcely closed my eyes all night. 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. It’s horrible!"

The queen then immediately ordered for a wedding. Only a true princess could have such a delicate skin to feel a pea through twenty layers of bedsheet.

Analysis

In the Aarne and Thompson classification of folktales, The Princess and the Pea is categorized under its own type as type 704, The Princess on the Pea.

Adaptations

A parody of this fairy tale, The Princess and the Bowling Ball, can be found in The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales.