Once there lived a Prince named John. He always dreamt of marrying a princess. To fulfill his dream, he traveled around the world in search of a real princess. But he failed to find one.
He came across a lot of princess but John found it difficult to identify whether they were real ones or not. All of them had some qualities missing than the princess that John had dreamt of. He traveled for a long time, but was unsuccessful in finding the princess of his dreams. So he came back home, sad and miserable.
One evening, there came a dreadful storm. It was followed by lightning and thunder. Heavy rain poured in. Some one knocked at the giant door of the palace. The king went to unlock the door.
To the surprise of the king, a beautiful princess was standing outside the door. All soaked and drenched in the rain, the princess was looking beautiful and charming. She revealed that she was a real princess from a place called Honton.
The prince decided to judge whether she was a real princess or not. So, he went inside the bedroom. He removed the bedcovers from the bed and kept a pea underneath. Later, he took fifteen mattresses and put them over the pea. On top of that, he placed fifteen more quilts.
He asked the princess to sleep on the bed in the night.
The next day, the prince asked the princess whether she had a comfortable sleep on the bed.
Tired, the princess replied, “Oh, the night was terrible. I could hardly close my eyes to sleep. Don’t know what was inside the bed that pricked my whole body. I have bruises all over my body. It was really horrible!”
The prince thought, “The princess has successfully passed the test of being a real princess. No one other than a real princess would be as sensitive to identify a pea.”
The search of the prince to find a real princess was hence over. So the princess and the prince married each other and lived happily ever after.