The Real Princess

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Real Princess by Hans Christian Andersen. There was once
a prince, and he wanted a princess. But then she
must be a real princess. He traveled right round the
world to find one, but there was always something wrong.

(00:22):
There were plenty of princesses, but whether there were real
princesses he had great difficulty in discovering. There was always
something which was not quite right about them. So at
last he had come home again, and he was very
sad because he wanted a real princess so badly. One

(00:42):
evening there was a terrible storm. It thundered, enlightened, and
rain poured down in Torrents. Indeed, it was a fearful night.
In the middle of the storm, somebody knocked at the
town gate, and the old king himself went to open it.
It was a princess who stood outside, but she was

(01:05):
in a terrible state from the rain and the storm.
The water streamed out of her hair and clothes. It
ran in at the top of her shoes and out
at the heel. But she said that she was a
real princess. Well we shall soon see if that is true,
thought the old queen. But she said nothing. She went

(01:27):
into the bedroom, took all the bed clothes off, and
laid a pea on the bedstead. Then she took twenty
mattresses and piled them on top of the pea, and
then twenty feather beds on top of the mattresses. This
was where the princess was to sleep that night. In
the morning, they asked her how she had slept. Oh,

(01:48):
terribly badly, said the princess. I have hardly closed my
eyes the whole night. Heaven knows what was in the bed.
I seemed to be lying upon some hard thing. And
my whole body is black and blue this morning. It
is terrible. They saw at once that she must be
a real princess when she had felt the pea through

(02:11):
twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds. Nobody but a real
princess could have such a delicate skin. So the prince
took her to be his wife. For now he was
sure that he had found a real princess, and the
pea was put into a museum where it may still
be seen if no one has stolen it. Now this

(02:34):
is a true story, and of the real princess