The Princess and the Pea: The Moral

The Princess and the Pea was written in 1835 by Hans Christian Andersen. If you aren't familiar with the original story you can read a quick (and sarcastic) summary of it over in this other blog post.

What I did not mention in the other post is that at the time of its publication it was about as popular as a lead balloon.

The critics were hostile and disliked the informal, “chatty” tone of the story–and the other two it was published with.

Over the years the story has also been poked apart by readers who point out the irony in the story. The most glaring irony/plot hole, is that a princess who is so tired she can’t sleep because of a pea and it gives her bruises, arrived at the prince’s castle alone, in a rainstorm, with soaked clothes, and had traveled a long distance. A princess who was sensitive enough to feel a pea would never do something so daring and uncomfortable.

As for the moral, some believe Andersen meant the story to be tongue-in-cheek and poke fun at the ridiculous measures aristocracy went through to preserve their bloodlines, others believe Andersen mostly meant for the story to drive home that “sensitivity” is required to be a true noble, not wealth. This is thought because although Andersen mingled with the “upper-crust” he was never accepted as one of them due to his poor birth, and thus he identified with the princess who had no visible wealth or even great beauty. (As a side note: Andersen was not a rich man, and lived off wealthy patrons, which is also why some think he wanted to believe aristocracy was something besides breeding and wealth.)

Regardless of what others say, Andersen himself said he meant for the described “sensitivity” to be emotionally sensitive. Meaning the princess was compassionate and would be sensitive to the needs of her people, and that’s what made her a true princess. It’s a worthy moral–and one I tried to communicate in my retelling–but Andersen did a pretty poor job in communicating it. (Though that can be attributed to its length. It’s seriously about ten paragraphs long. In fact, this blog post is about the same length as the story.)

It was actually Andersen’s words–that a true princess was one sensitive to her people’s needs–that sparked the idea for my retelling–but I decided to come after it from a slightly different angle. (I was also inspired by the last few lines of Andersen’s tale, in which he notes that the pea that ruined the princess’ sleep was put in a museum, and it is still there if no one has stolen it. It made me ponder why anyone would ever want to steal such a thing, and so the Pea of Primeorder was born!)

And here's the link again if you haven't tried my fantasy retelling of this story: Read The Princess and the Pea. It features a mercenary female lead who is called to the castle to help protect the fabled Pea of Primeorder by Prince Channing.

(Best of all? It's free!).

Princess and the Pea: The original tale

While not having it's own Disney Princess adaptation the fairy tale of The Princess and the Pea is still one of the most popular. But how well do you know the original story?

In this blog post I will be sarcastically summarizing this fairy tale and sharing the tidbits of info I learned as part of my research for writing my own retelling of this story, The Princess and the Pea, which is a free novella you can download the read right now if you want.

Important Disclaimer:

Before I get started, just a gentle reminder that even though I enjoy poking fun of them there’s a lot more complexity to fairy tales than we can comprehend because we don’t have the same experiences and knowledge that the average person from the 1800s would have. But, teasing the original story is so fun, so let’s go!

The Princess and the Pea was written by Hans Christian Andersen, who published it in 1835. Unlike the Little Mermaid, which is an original fairy tale by Andersen, The Princess and the Pea was based on traditional folk tales Andersen heard as a child.

The story of The Princess and the Pea goes as follows:

Once upon a time there was a (super snobby) prince decided he wanted to marry a princess. But not just any princess a real princess. (Because there are tons of fakes out there. Obviously.) He traveled the world searching for a real princess, but was unable to find one, and it seemed like there was something off about all the princesses he did meet.

So the prince returned home. One night, during a terrible storm, someone knocked on the castle door. The prince’s father–the King–went and opened it, revealing a soggy, mud spattered princess who claimed to be a real princess.

The prince’s mother–the queen–was suspicious, so she hurried to the bedchamber the so-called real princess was going to stay in, and took off all the bedding of the bed, placed a single pea there, then had twenty mattresses laid on top of it and twenty down beds on top of the mattresses. (Question: how did this real princess not suffocate from sinking into that many down beds? Second question: Why did the queen have twenty mattresses hanging around?)

An illustration by Edmund Dulac of the princess on the mattress. Note the room’s high ceiling to allow for all those mattresses!

The queen then sent the princess to the chamber and was told to sleep there all night. In the morning she asked the princess how she slept. The (ungrateful, whiny) princess lamented that she slept terribly poorly and couldn’t sleep all night because there was something so hard in the bed she got bruises on her whole body. (Uh-huh, not only is she a terrible house-guest, she’s apparently incapable of rolling on to her side.)

This (somehow?) proved to the King, Queen, and prince that she was a real princess–because she felt the pea through all the mattresses and down beds. And “Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that.”

So the prince took her as his wife, and the pea was “put in a museum where it may still be seen, if no one has stolen it.” (Because everyone wants the pea that a whiny princess claimed gave her bruises. It makes the pea super valuable.)

And that’s the story! Charming, hmm? To be fair, I don’t think the story translates well into English, and Andersen chose some really poor wording in trying to get the moral across–which isn’t as terrible as it seems. You can learn more about that in this blog post on the story’s moral.

And here's the link again if you haven't tried my fantasy retelling of this story: Read The Princess and the Pea. It features a mercenary female lead who is called to the castle to help protect the fabled Pea of Primeorder by Prince Channing.

(Best of all? It's free!).

Insert Hold Music Here

Hello Champions! My original plan for today’s post was to sum up the poll winners and release the questions for the top heroes, but I ran into a bit of a scheduling snafu last week. I was supposed to finish The Revived, book 3 of the Second Age of Retha series, on Friday or Saturday. Buuuut the book is turning out to be much longer than anticipated, so I’m hustling to get the last few chapters done and the Q&A session with Merlin, Emerys, Friedrich and Farrin is going to be delayed until it’s finished. But, I still have some fun updates to share!

Firstly, I’ve finally launched a Timeless Fairy Tale boxset, (pictured above) which contains the first three fairy tales: Beauty and the Beast, Wild Swans, and Cinderella! This boxset doesn’t have any extra content, it’s just a cheaper way to buy the first three books in the series. The goal is to use it for promotions and giveaways, but in order for the boxset to qualify for various promotional sites, it needs a few more reviews. If you have read these books and you have a moment, could you please fill out a review? It will be a huge help to me and hopefully bring new readers into the series. (Click here for the book link) Thank you so much for your support!

As some of you might noticed, I now have a pintrest button at the top of the website as I have finally gotten an official account and a made some really fun boards. You can check out my account here, I have a board for fairy tale book retellings, video game jokes, castles, and–my favorite–some beautiful quote images Myrrhlynn whipped up for me! (You can see an example below.)

Although I’ve skulked around pintrest for years now, this is really my first attempt at having an “official” page, so I’m still stumbling around a bit. As I told the Facebook Champions, I hoping some of you guys are more knowledgeable about it so I can stalk  I mean follow you in hopes that some of your experience will rub off on me.

That’s it for today! Hopefully I can get The Revived finished in the next few days. This is the third time I’ve overshot the production schedule with it due to its unexpected length–It’s going to be the longest book I’ve released since Life Reader. By a lot. But I’m so close to the end, I can almost taste it! As usual, thanks for reading, and an extra big thank you if you took the time to review! I hope I get to see you in Pintrest–and don’t be afraid to follow me. I’ll follow you back…as soon as Pintrest stops accusing me of being a robot. 😉 Have a lovely day, and I hope you had a fantastic Easter!