The Princess and the Pea

A prince traveled all over the world looking for a real princess to marry, but he could never be sure any of the ladies he met were truly princesses. He came home disappointed.

One stormy night there was a knock at the castle gate. Outside stood a young woman, soaked from the rain, who said she was a real princess. The old queen said nothing, but she went to the guest room, put a single pea on the bed, and piled twenty mattresses and twenty feather quilts on top of it.

In the morning the princess said she had hardly slept a wink: something hard in the bed had left her black and blue. Only a real princess could be so delicate, so the prince married her, and the pea was put in a museum, where you can still see it, if no one has taken it.