The+Princess+and+the+Pea





This tale was published May 8, 1835 with a collection of three other stories in Copenhagen. The author is the famous Hans Christian Anderson. It is reported that Mr. Anderson maybe heard this story as a child. It fits the mold of a fairy tale because it contains magic, intrigue, princess meet prince, and a happy ending. The story is that there was a prince who wanted to be married and one night during a storm there arrived a woman at the gate. She was in much disheveled, wet and in desperate need of shelter. Although she claimed to be a princess she sure did not fit the mold. The Queen mother decided to put her to a test unbeknown to the princess. She put a pea under a load of twenty mattresses. The next morning when the Queen inquired how she slept she responded with the unexpected answer of "it was very uncomfortable." This is how she was deemed to be a princess indeed. Of course this is magic, romance, intrigue and I would dare say a lesson that you can never judge a book by its cover.