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“…The water ran down from her hair and clothes; it ran down into the toes of her shoes and out again at her heels.  And yet she said that she was a real princess. 

Well, we’ll soon find that out, thought the old queen.  But she said nothing, went into the bedroom, took all the bedding off the bedstead, and laid a pea on the bottom; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then twenty elder-down beds on top of the mattresses.

On this the princess had to lie all night.  In the morning she was asked how she had slept.

‘Oh, very badly!’ said she. ‘I have scarcely closed my eyes all night.  Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was lying on something hard, so that I am black and blue all over my body.  It’s horrible!’

Now they knew that she was a real princess because she had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty elder-down beds. Continue reading →