And the pea was preserved in the cabinet of curiosities, where it is still to be seen unless some one has stolen it. So the prince took her for his wife, for he knew that in her he had found a true princess. But we find earlier versions of this tale in other literature. The story was first written down in 1835 by Hans Christian Andersen, who claimed to have heard it in his childhood. None but a real princess could have such delicate feeling. 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. It was now quite evident that she was a real princess, since through twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds she had felt the pea. I lay upon something so hard that I am quite black and blue all over. I cannot think what there could have been in the bed.

'I scarcely closed my eyes the whole night through. In the morning she was asked how she had slept. The princess lay upon this bed all the night. One rainy night, a woman turns up at the prince's castle, hoping to find shelter for the night. Having done this, she took twenty mattresses and laid them upon the pea and placed twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses. The 'Princess' The princess cannot sleep on mattresses piled on top of a pea. 'Very well,' thought the old queen 'that we shall presently see.' She said nothing, but went into the bedchamber and took off all the bedding, then laid a pea on the sacking of the bedstead. But O dear, what a state she was in from the rain and bad weather! The water dropped from her hair and clothes, it ran in at the tips of her shoes and out at the heels yet she insisted she was a real princess. In the midst of it there came a knock at the town gate, and the old king went out to open it. It thundered and lightened, and the rain poured down indeed, it was quite fearful. Therefore, home he came again, quite out of spirits, for he wished so much to marry a real princess. Not that there was any lack of princesses, but he could not seem to make out whether they were real princesses there was always something not quite satisfactory.

So he traveled all round the world, seeking such a one, but everywhere something was in the way.

But she must be a real princess, mind you. There was once a prince who wanted to marry a princess.

The princess and the pea hans andersen