The Princess on the Pea

📘 About This Book

A prince wanted to find a real princess, but although he travelled the world, which is full of princesses, he could not find a real princess. So, he returned home, sad and empty-handed. But one stormy night, a soaking wet princess knocked on his door and asked for shelter for the night. The prince’s mother was not convinced that she was a real princess and decided to find out the truth. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author, poet and artist. Celebrated for children’s literature, his most cherished fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Match Girl". His books have been translated into every living language, and today there is no child or adult that has not met Andersen's whimsical characters. His fairy tales have been adapted to stage and screen countless times, most notably by Disney with the animated films "The Little Mermaid" in 1989 and "Frozen", which is loosely based on "The Snow Queen", in 2013. Thanks to Andersen's contribution to children's literature, his birth date, April 2, is celebrated as International Children's Book Day.

📖 Summary

The Princess on the Pea is a classic fairy tale written by the renowned Danish author, poet, and artist Hans Christian Andersen. First published in the nineteenth century and presented here in a compact five-page edition, the story follows a young prince who harbors an earnest desire to marry a real princess. Driven by this ambition, the prince travels far and wide across the entire world, encountering many princesses along his journey. However, despite the abundance of royalty he meets, he is never quite certain of their authenticity and ultimately returns home feeling sad and empty-handed. The narrative takes an unexpected turn on a wild and stormy night when a young woman appears at the castle gates. Soaking wet and battered by the fierce weather, she knocks on the door and humbly asks for shelter from the storm, claiming to be a true princess. The prince is intrigued, but his mother, the queen, remains deeply skeptical and resolves to test the stranger to discover the absolute truth of her identity. To test the visitor's royal sensitivity, the queen devises a clever and unusual trial. She strips the guest bed of all its mattresses and places a single tiny green pea at the very bottom of the wooden frame. Upon this pea, she orders twenty mattresses to be piled high, and on top of those, twenty eider-down feather beds are stacked. The mysterious traveler is invited to sleep in this towering bed for the night. The following morning, the household gathers to ask the guest how she slept. To everyone's astonishment, the young woman complains that she barely closed her eyes all night. She explains that she lay upon something dreadfully hard, which left her bruised and aching all over her body. This delicate and extraordinary physical sensitivity proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is a real princess, for no one else could possibly possess skin sensitive enough to feel a single pea through such a massive mountain of bedding. The prince, overjoyed to finally find what he had searched the world for, takes her as his bride, and the pea is placed in the royal museum, where it remains for all to see unless someone has carried it off. This whimsical tale showcases Andersen's brilliant ability to blend humor, satire, and traditional folklore into a narrative that continues to captivate readers of all ages around the globe.

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