old King, the Prince’s father, went out himself to open it.
It was a Princess who was standing outside the door. What with the rain and the wind, she was in a sad condition; the water trickled down from her hair, and her clothes clung to her body. She said she was a real Princess.
“Ah! we shall soon see that!” thought the old Queen-mother; however, she said not a word of what she was going to do; but went quietly into the bed-room, took all the bed-clothes off the bed, and put three little peas on the bedstead. She then laid twenty mattrasses one upon another over the three peas, and put twenty feather beds over the mattrasses.
Upon this bed the Princess was to pass the night.
The next morning she was asked how she had slept. “Oh, very badly indeed!” she replied. “I have scarcely closed my eyes the whole night through. I do not know what was in my bed, but I had something hard under me, and am all over black and blue. It has hurt me so much!”
Now it was plain that the lady must be a
