The Peas

peas1There was once upon a time a prince who wanted to marry.

He wanted to marry a princess, but none of these that was presented to him did not seem quite Princess to him.

Now, in a stormy day, the bell rang at the gate of the castle.

The king opened it himself, and found outside the gate a girl whose clothes were soaked, hair disheveled and shoes covered with mud.

She was almost like a beggar. But when the king asked her who she was, she answered that she was a princess.

The king took her into the castle.

“We shall see if it is a princess,” thought the queen.

She ordered the servants to prepare a bed for the girl, but to put a pea under twenty mattresses that made up the bed.

The next day the queen asked the girl how she had slept.

“Very wrong,” she replied. “There was something indescribable hard and round in my bed; I have bruises all over the body.”

“What joy!” thought the prince, who had been listening behind the door. “To have skin so fine, it must be either a real princess.”

And immediately he asked for her hand.

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