The Princess and the Pea

Once upon a time, in a distant kingdom, there lived a young prince named Arnau. The prince longed to marry, but not just any princess: he wished to find a true princess. In search of her, he had sailed the seven seas, climbed the world’s highest mountains and faced the fiercest dragons. Yet he had not found the princess he was looking for.

Every princess Arnau met on his travels had some feature that he considered a flaw. Some were very tall and others very short; some had large noses and others small ones. Arnau began to despair and wondered whether any true princesses existed at all.

After five years of searching, he returned to his kingdom sad and disappointed. He shut himself away in the castle’s highest tower and became lost in thought.

One stormy night, as lightning lit the sky and thunder shook the palace, someone knocked at the door. The servants were too frightened to open it, so Arnau’s father, the king, went to see who was there.

When he opened the door, he found a young woman soaked by the rain. She wore a blue silk dress woven with golden thread and delicate glass slippers. Water dripped from her long black braids like a fountain.

“Your Majesty, I am a princess and I am lost. May I spend the night in your palace?” she asked in a gentle voice.

The king remembered his son’s wish and decided to discover whether she was truly a princess. He invited her inside and asked the servants to prepare a room.

The king ordered them to place ten mattresses and ten quilts upon a bed. Then, without anyone seeing, he hid a tiny pea beneath the bottom mattress.

The next morning, the king asked the princess how she had slept.

“Very badly, Your Majesty,” she replied wearily. “There was something hard in the bed, and it kept me awake all night.”

The king smiled. He was certain that only a true princess could be sensitive enough to notice a pea beneath so many mattresses. Delighted, he hurried to the tower to find his son.

“My son, I have found a true princess!” he exclaimed.

Arnau came down from the tower to meet her. When he entered the room, their eyes met and they both knew that they were meant for one another.

Two weeks later, a magnificent wedding was held at the palace. The celebrations lasted seven days and were filled with music, dancing and joy. Prince Arnau and the princess lived happily ever after, and the pea was placed in the kingdom’s museum as a reminder of its unusual part in their love story.

This tale reminds us that what we seek may appear in the most unexpected place and in the most surprising way. It also teaches us that authenticity and sensitivity can be revealed through the smallest details.