The Princess and the Pea - Danish

Hello there! My name is the Queen, and I live in a big, cozy castle with my son, the Prince. He was a wonderful prince, but he was a little sad because he wanted to marry a real princess, and they are very hard to find! I told him not to worry, because I had a special way to find out if someone was truly royal. This is the story of how we found his perfect match, a tale we call The Princess and the Pea. One stormy night, we heard a knock at the castle door, and our adventure began.

Standing in the rain was a young woman who said she was a princess. Her hair was dripping and her shoes were muddy, but I invited her inside to stay the night. To see if she was telling the truth, I went to the guest bedroom and put one tiny, little green pea on the bed. Then, my helpers and I piled twenty soft mattresses on top of the pea. After that, we added twenty fluffy feather beds on top of the mattresses! It was a bed so tall she needed a ladder to climb up. I tucked her in and wished her a good night, wondering what she would say in the morning.

The next day, I asked the princess how she slept. 'Oh, terribly!' she said. 'I tossed and turned all night. I feel all black and blue. There was something hard in my bed!' My son and I looked at each other with big smiles. Only a real princess would be sensitive enough to feel one tiny pea through all those layers! The Prince was so happy he had found his true princess, and they were married right away. The little pea was put in a museum for everyone to see. This story reminds us that sometimes the smallest things can show the biggest truths, and it’s still shared today to make us wonder about the magic hidden in the world.