Of course I was a princess.
The distinct lack of a palace, royal relatives and sticky-out dresses...well, it just made my position all the more romantic, that's all.
So all I had to do to prove my royal birth was to get hold of about fifteen mattresses...
The Princess and the Pea - Credit: Tomasz Sienicki
...well, perhaps one would do. I had one.
Then I just had to put a pea underneath the mattress...
...unfortunately my mattress proved to lay upon wire mesh. A pea would fall through that.
Okay then, if I put my pea on a book before I put it under my mattress then...
...the real problem was that I'd only ever comes across fresh peas. Which, (because I was quite a hefty child) would obviously immediately get squashed.
Ah well. I would prove my sensitive royalty in other ways, like crying bitterly whenever I saw something dead.
Because of course I was a princess...
Word To Use Today: pea. This word used to be pease, but it got shortened because everyone thought it was a plural. Pease comes from the Old English peose, from the Latin pisa, which is a plural (of pisum) from the Greek pison.
I love this story! Don't really know why...I think one is meant to think the Princess was too fussy for her own good but I admire anyone who can feel a pea through 15 mattresses. Or even one!
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