“The Princess and the Pea” is perhaps Andersen’s most famous tale about a princess, or more precisely, explaining what a princess actually is. That is, a princess is someone who will show up soaking wet on your doorstop and demand that a bed be prepared especially for her particular needs, and then will spend the next day complaining about it, but, on the bright side, the entire incident will later give you a small interesting exhibit for your museum.
Maybe not that much of a bright side.
This is Andersen’s cheerful view of princesses. He did have another one, shared in his less famous story, “The Swineherd.”
Several Andersen fairy tale collections tend to group the two tales together—partly because “The Princess and the Pea” is so short, even by fairy tale standards, and partly because the two tales match together quite well thematically. Originally, however, they were not written or published together. “The Princess and the Pea” was originally published in 1835, in Tales, Told for Children, First Collection, a small chapbook of three tales that also included “The Tinderbox” and “Little Claus and Big Claus.” It was not warmly received at first, partly because it was so short. The Grimms included some very short stories in their collections, but those—technically—were presented as collections of folktales and oral fairy tales. Literary fairy tales—the ones written by French aristocrats, for instance, or the ones Giambattista Basile wrote in his attempt to elevate the Neapolitan dialect to the status of a literary language — had generally been, well, longer than a page, which “The Princess and the Pea,” for all its cleverness, was not.
“The Swineherd” originally appeared in another small booklet, Fairy Tales Told For Children: New Collection, a good six years later, next to “Ole Lukoie,” “The Rose-Elf,” and “The Buckwheat.” None of these tales proved especially popular, but “The Swineherd,” at least, did attract the attention of English translators—who in turn attracted the attention of Andrew Lang, who decided to include both stories in the 1894 The Yellow Fairy Book, bringing both to the attention of a wider audience. With the option of a couple of different translations of “The Princess and the Pea,” Lang chose the one that kept both the single pea (instead of the three peas used by one English translator) and the ending sentence about the museum (also removed by some translators), ensuring that both elements entered English readings of the tale.
A quick refresher, just in case you’ve forgotten the parts of that tale that don’t involve mattresses: a prince is looking for a real princess, but despite going everywhere, can’t seem to find one—every supposed princess has some sort of flaw showing that she’s not a real princess. I would like at this point to note that most fairy tale princes find their princesses through magical quests and slaying monsters and all that, not just going to other courts in a very judgey way and going, eh, not up to princess level, BUT THAT’S ME. Anyway, luckily for the prince, I suppose, a Real But Very Wet Princess shows up at the door. His mother tests the princess out by putting a pea beneath 20 mattresses and 20 quilts (or feather beds, depending upon the translation; let’s just think heavy thick blankets), which leaves the poor girl bruised. The prince and princess get married; the pea ends up in a museum, and my summary here is nearly as long as the actual story.
As many observers before me have pointed out, it’s entirely possible that the princess figured something was up as soon as she saw that many mattresses and feather beds piled up on the bed offered to her, and tailored her story accordingly. Or, she ended up covered in bruises after she rolled over and fell off such a high bed, and then was in too much pain to sleep afterwards, no matter how many mattresses and quilts and so on. Her story is a touch questionable, is what I’m saying, even if that pea was preserved in a museum.
Also questionable: the origin of the story, which may be original, or may not. Andersen claimed that he’d heard the story as a child, and it does have some parallels in other folktales. The origin of “The Swineherd” is equally questionable: it may be original, but it echoes several tales of proud princesses who refuse their suitors. It’s also possible that Andersen may even have read “King Thrushbeard,” collected by the Grimms in their 1812 edition of Household Tales, prior to writing his proud princess tale.
“The Swineherd” begins by introducing a poor prince who wishes to marry the daughter of the emperor. It doesn’t seem quite hopeless—he may not have a lot of money, precisely, but he does possess a nearly magical rose and a nightingale—two very familiar motifs in Andersen’s tale. Alas, the princess is disappointed in the rose, at first because it is not a cat (I feel many readers can sympathize with this) and then because—gasp—the rose is not artificial, but real (something I feel fewer readers might sympathize with). She is equally disappointed in the nightingale, for the same reasons.
Andersen had ventured into several aristocratic houses and argued with other artists by the time he wrote this tale, and in the process, gained some very definite thoughts on the superiority of the real and natural to the artificial, something he would most famously explore in his 1844 tale, “The Nightingale.” Some of this was at least slightly defensive: Andersen’s initial tales were dismissed by critics in part because they were not deemed literary—that is, in Andersen’s mind, artificial—enough. Which given Andersen’s tendency to add plenty of flourishes—digressions, observations, ironic comments, bits of dialogue from side characters—to his tales makes that particular criticism a bit, well, odd, but it was made at the time, and seems to have bothered the often thin-skinned Andersen.
But more than just a response to his literary critics, Andersen’s insistence on the value of real seems to have stemmed at least in part to his reactions to the industrial revolution, as well as his response to the artwork and trinkets he encountered in the various aristocratic houses and palaces he entered. As his other tales demonstrate, he was also often appalled by the artificial tenets of aristocratic behavior. That irritation entered his tales.
Anyway. The failure of his gifts fails to daunt the prince, who takes a job at the palace as an Imperial Swineherd. Before everyone gets shook about this: Look. Even in the 19th century, aristocracy often paid considerably less than it once did, and this guy just gave up his rose and nightingale. Plus, his job as Imperial Swineherd leaves plenty of time for him to create magical objects, like a pot that allows the user to know exactly what is getting cooked in every house in the city. AND it plays music.
This, the princess wants. The swineherd prince demands ten kisses from the princess in return—and gets them, although the princess demands that they be concealed by her ladies-in-waiting.
The swineherd prince next creates a rattle, which turns out to be less a rattle and more a music box, but moving on. He demands one hundred kisses for this one. And this time, he and the Princess are caught by the Emperor—who tosses the two of them out of the kingdom. At which point, the annoyed prince notes that the princess refused to kiss him when he was a prince, offering roses and nightingales, but did kiss him when he was a swineherd, offering toys. Toys made by his own hand, I should point out, and, honestly, prince, at least this way you know that she wasn’t after your title, but after the things that you could make, which, long term, is probably much better. And you’ve already kissed her, at this point, (pauses for a bit of addition) ninety-six times. I mean, how bad could these kisses have been, really, given that you demanded more after the first ten?
Apparently pretty bad, since the prince deserts her, slamming the door in her face, leaving her alone.
Harsh.
So let’s compare and contrast for a moment here: show up wet and soaked at the doorway of a palace with no identification and then have the nerve to complain about the huge bed provided to you that evening = marry a prince, live happily ever after, and have the entire exploit and the pea preserved in a museum. Decline gifts you didn’t ask for but agree to pay for things you want—ok, granted, in kinda sexual favors, but still—find yourself exiled and alone, without a prince.
Fairy tales. Am I right? Fairy tales.
Or perhaps, in this case, just Andersen.
And no, it does not escape my notice that the princess who heads to bed alone (the pea doesn’t count) lives happily ever after, while the princess who kisses someone of a decidedly lower stature (or so she thinks) does not. It’s hardly an unusual double standard of course, especially for princesses in fairy tales, expected to act like princesses at all times, or face the dire consequences.
Even if wet.
“The Princess and the Pea” inspired numerous picture books, most very funny (the image of the princess struggling to climb to the top of twenty mattresses and twenty feather-beds never gets old), as well as the successful 1959 Broadway musical Once Upon a Mattress, nominated for a Tony Award, and later revived on Broadway in the mid-1990s, and a few minor films. Not surprisingly, given its less happy ending, “The Swineherd” has not been turned into nearly as many picture books, but it has been adapted into a few stage productions, and appears in most Andersen collections, often, if not always, by the story of a true princess. Both are worthy of your time—perhaps especially if you feel a touch of skepticism about fairy tale princesses.
Mari Ness lives in central Florida.
Maybe the princess in the Swineherd is the same as the princess with the Pea? After all the poor girl had to do something with herself after being abandoned and it would be a good explanation for why a Real Princess is wandering about in the rain all alone. This is not usual behavior for princesses. The arrogance is right too.
So happy ending for the princess – if not the second prince. And presumably the royal swineherd goes somewhere and makes his fortune building high end toys for the aristocracy which is kind of a happy ending too.
I’d always heard the version of “The Princess and the Pea” in which the princess was merely unable to sleep a wink because of the pea under her 20 mattresses, complaining that the bed was far too lumpy. (I seem to recall an expanded version — maybe a Fractured Fairy Tales installment? — in which they started with one mattress but kept adding more and more on successive nights.) That version makes sense to me, in its fashion. A princess would’ve been raised in total luxury with the most perfect of furnishings, so even the tiniest imperfection in her bedding would be intolerable to her.
But you’re telling me the original version has her actually being bruised by that tiny pea? The logic of that version eludes me. Sure, I get that the ideal in ye olden times was for princesses to be delicate and sublime. But the ideal was also that a princess should be able to produce heirs for the royal line. If this gal’s so fragile that she gets bruised by a single pea 20 mattresses below her, how the hell could she be expected to survive childbirth? Or any physical contact at all, such as the sort that would be required to conceive an heir? That’s not regal delicacy, that’s a life-threatening medical condition.
The whole pea thing strikes me as the perfect way to find a spouse that will kvetch about every little thing, not a good method to find a mate for a happy relationship.
@2 yes, the original story had one tiny pea under dozen or so feather mattresses. The logic, as explained in the story, that it was a test for her from Queen Mother on assumption that only a REAL princess would-be so delicate and sensitive to feel that pea, otherwise she is another fake. The logic is entirely fairy tale.
On the other side, having been to Europe and experienced those old fashioned feather mattresses, them being rather thin and extremely soft as to end up being no thicker than glorified blankets I can definitely believe that unless one was hardened Danish farmwife and really sound sleeper, everyone would feel that hard pea, or at least sharp feathers sticking out and pocking them.
@2: That’s not regal delicacy, that’s a life-threatening medical condition.
Well, perhaps Anderson was aware of some of the effects of royal inbreeding, even though the genetic causes might not have been identified yet?
My favorite version of The Princess and the Pea is a Sesame Street version I remember from my childhood. Cookie Monster was the princess, and Kermit the Frog was a reporting on whether the princess could feel a cookie placed under the 20 mattresses. The punchline was Cookie Monster did feel something under himself, but it was the mattresses, and the sketch ends with Cookie Monster eating all the mattresses.
I have a phobia of dead flowers, so I actually would prefer a gift of a artificial rose to a real one, though it wouldn’t make or break a relationship. (I would be fine with receiving gifts of certain other flowers, or any kind of leaves). When I was the six-year-old flower girl at my cousin’s wedding, she graciously used an artificial bouquet so I could carry it without fear.
Discworld parodied the pea story with a reference to stories about pricesses “so noble they could pee through a dozen mattresses.”
I wonder what makes The Princess and the Pea such an enduring story? In the version I read with my daughter, the princess doesn’t seem excessively spoiled or entitled, she just honestly can’t sleep with the pea under the mattresses. Is it the example of a spoiled young woman that keeps this story going? I can’t see any particular moral.
I tell “The Princess and the Pea” to my kids with the revision that the prince’s parents were pathologically picky, hence the problem. The prince would have been pleased as Punch to marry the princess, whose personality and prospects he knew perfectly well already, and she likewise–but his parents–!! Knowing about the pea trick, they decided to placate his parents, and pluck their own personal freedom from the grasp of the preceding generation, with a single ploy.
@8/vinsentient: The bit that stands out in my memory is the exaggerated premise, the visual of the 20 piled mattresses and the absurd idea that anyone could feel a single pea under all of that. So it’s more about the gimmick than the characters or moral, I think. It’s just a silly little tale.
Or maybe it’s just that so many of us can sympathize with the frustrated desire to get a good night’s sleep in a perfectly comfortable bed.
My childhood issue with the story was that I hadn’t heard of dried peas. An ordinary green pea, particularly from a can would squish, and no princess, no matter how delicate, could feel it.
In the ALF Tales version, it’s the mother who doesn’t want her son to marry the princess he chose rather than the princess SHE chose. They don’t even tell him what the test is, for fear he’ll help the princess cheat. When they see the bed and all the mattresses, He guesses the test is to see if she can fall asleep. The next morning, very upset because she couldn’t sleep, the princess says she tossed and turned all night. “It was like there was a PEA under the mattress!”
When Anderson wrote, the difference between established families, new money, and ambitious wannabes was becoming more of an issue. The signs of a “true” lady/gentleman were becoming bigger issues to differentiate the groups. A true lady, for example, wouldn’t have calluses on her hands from work. So, a true princess has to crank it up a notch and be so unused to anything hard and uncomfortable that even the tiny lump from a pea was too much for her.
But, I’ve never liked the prince in the The Swineherd. Listing the problems in order:
1) As an adult, I get that the prince’s gifts were symbolic of true love and a deep soul (that appreciated the song of the nightingale). But, even so, the prince needs to deal with the fact that the princess was under no obligation to like him or his gifts. Yes, she should have sent a nice thank you card and been polite, but the guy needs to grow up.
2) I don’t mind it in fairy tales where the fairy who’s into testing people for character flaws or who, after hearing about some awful behavior, decides it’s lesson time. They’re supposedly qualified to make some judgments (except when they get irrational over invites to christenings). Princes who didn’t get a date? Not so much. The mature thing would have been to recognize that he and the princess obviously had different interests and to move on.
3) So, he finds something the princess does like, starts to have some relationship success, only it turns out this was all a ploy to humiliate her and get her father to kick her out. The prince feels no regret, because a princess who will kiss a guy for those presents is showing her low character, unlike a prince who will kiss a girl as part of a revenge fantasy to get her publicly humiliated, disinherited, and kicked out with nothing. He seems to think he’s a real prize.
Personally, I hope she DID marry the prince in The Princess and the Pea. And I hope her prince was holding the mortgage on The Swineherd prince’s kingdom when he lost everything (because he wastes his time and talents getting revenge instead of seeing he’s making something marketable that could be used to help get his very poor kingdom out of poverty. Obviously, if anyone suggests this, they get a long lecture on how they lack soul and an appreciation for true beauty before getting kicked out without a job or a reference).
@8, I think it’s the sheer silliness of it all that makes The Princess and the Pea eternally popular. That image of a bed piled ten feet high with mattresses never gets old.
@13, a sane suitor would quietly ask for his presents back, since she doesn’t want them and they are his greatest treasures, and go his way. Not to mention recognize this is not his girl and find a princess who is rather than waste all that time and ingenuity on revenge. The Swineherd prince clearly has entitlement issues and abusive tendencies and the princess is much better off going it alone.
@Aerona.
Ysabel later references the correct fairytale, but that’s definitely the memorable line
My favorite versions of this are the Faerie Tale Theatre episode, just because it was one we watched a lot and was quite silly; and the book A True Princess by Diane Zahler, who has written several delightful fairy tale adaptations.
Every time I feel something, even a small grain of something in my bed, I say Princess and the Pea out loud. I am a happy white male nerd, but I respect that story enough that it found a way into my subconscious even though I haven’t read it since I was a child.
In “Once Upon a Mattress” the king and (I think) the jester put a lot of armor under the mattresses which keep Princess Fred (yes, really) awake. Because the king really, really wants the queen to stop being picky. And to stop talking. He gets the second wish, anyway.