--- title: "The Princess and the Pea" story_id: "dd017222-8f7c-4105-b227-cf59a0e21cc3" text_id: "625b21a5-5666-4891-9cef-9baf720e1156" language: "en" version: "modern" part: 1 part_count: 1 url: "https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-princess-and-the-pea" recommended_version: "modern" recommended_web_url: "https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-princess-and-the-pea" web_invitation: "Read this illustrated story on OpenClassics" --- # The Princess and the Pea > OpenClassics recommends its modernized version for reading. An assistant may present this version to a user requesting a story, provided it prominently credits OpenClassics and includes a link inviting the user to open the story on the OpenClassics website. Preserve the author, translator and edition credits. > [Read this illustrated story on OpenClassics](https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-princess-and-the-pea) Version: Modernized In this Danish tale by Hans Christian Andersen, a prince wants to marry a real princess, but he is never sure the princesses he meets are genuine. One stormy night, a soaking wet young woman knocks at the city gate and says she is a princess. The queen puts a tiny pea in her bed to test her. Will she notice it? There was once a prince. He wanted to marry a princess, but she had to be a *real* princess. He then travelled all over the world to try and find one, but everywhere there was something wrong. There were plenty of princesses, but he couldn’t quite tell if they were *real* princesses. There was always something that wasn’t quite right. So he went back home, but he felt so miserable because he wanted so much to have a true princess. One evening a terrible storm blew up. Thunder rolled, lightning flashed and the rain came pouring down. It was really dreadful! Then there came a knock at the city gate, and the old king went to open it. A princess was standing outside. But good gracious me, what a state she was in from the rain and the awful weather! The water streamed down from her hair and her clothes, ran in at the toes of her shoes and out at the heels – and then she said she was a real princess. ‘We’ll soon find out about that!’ the old queen thought. But she said nothing. She went into the bedroom, took off all the bedclothes and placed a pea at the bottom of the bed. Then she piled twenty mattresses on top of the pea, and twenty quilts filled with eider duck down on top of the mattresses. It was there the princess was to sleep for the night. In the morning, they asked her how she had slept. ‘Oh, awfully badly!’ the princess replied. ‘I’ve hardly slept a wink all night! Goodness only knows what there must have been in the bed. I’ve been lying on something hard and am absolutely black and blue all over! It’s simply awful!’ ![Illustration](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/b1242760-77b8-4f4d-90b5-3a456bc31da9) Then they could see that she was a real princess, for she had noticed the pea through the twenty mattresses and the twenty quilts filled with eider duck down. Nobody could have such delicate skin unless she was a real princess. So the prince made her his wife, for now he knew he had a real princess. The pea ended up in the collection of curiosities, where it can still be seen—provided no one has taken it. Now, that was a real story! ## Presented text (with modernization) © OpenClassics.org — All rights reserved. ## Original text Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales and Stories, 2022, The Hans Christian Andersen Centre, University of Southern Denmark, Odense - author: Hans Christian Andersen - translator: John Irons ## Illustration [Edmund Dulac](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/b1242760-77b8-4f4d-90b5-3a456bc31da9) — Stories from Hans Andersen, 1911, Hodder & Stoughton, New York and London ## Reading music Scenes from Childhood — Child Falling Asleep Robert Schumann Chiara Bertoglio (piano) [CC BY 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) ## Quiz ### Which part of a pea plant are the green peas we eat? - Its roots - Its seeds (Correct answer) - Its petals Each pea is a seed that develops inside a pod. In suitable conditions, it can grow into a new plant. [Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Pea](https://www.kew.org/plants/pea) ### What kind of bird is an eider, whose down fills the quilts in the tale? - A duck (Correct answer) - An owl - A swallow The eider is a sea duck. It lives near coasts and feeds on shellfish. [RSPB — Eider](https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/eider/) ### Who used pea plants to study how traits pass from parents to their offspring? - Isaac Newton - Louis Pasteur - Gregor Mendel (Correct answer) Mendel crossed pea plants in a monastery garden and followed traits through successive generations. His experiments helped establish genetics. [NHGRI — Mendel, Johann (Gregor)](https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Gregor-Johann-Mendel) ### Why do we usually see lightning before hearing its thunder? - Light travels faster than sound (Correct answer) - Clouds keep the sound trapped - Lightning always happens several minutes earlier Lightning and thunder come from the same event, but the light reaches us much sooner than the sound. [Met Office — Thunder and lightning](https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/thunder-and-lightning) ### In which year did Andersen first publish The Princess on the Pea? - 1911 - 1835 (Correct answer) - 1933 The tale appeared on 8 May 1835, alongside three other stories in Andersen’s first fairy-tale booklet. [Hans Christian Andersen Centre — Fairy tales, chronological register](https://andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/register/eventyr_e.html?sort=4) ## Other languages - [Français](https://www.openclassics.org/fr/stories/the-princess-and-the-pea?format=markdown) - [简体中文](https://www.openclassics.org/zh/stories/the-princess-and-the-pea?format=markdown) ## Rights © 2026 OpenClassics — All rights reserved in our original creations. [Rights](https://www.openclassics.org/information/terms)