Then the Swineherd went behind a tree, washed the black and brown off his face, threw off his ragged clothes, and stood forth in his royal apparel, looking so handsome that she was obliged to curtsey.
“I have learned to despise you,” he said. “You would not have an honourable Prince. You could not appreciate a rose or a Nightingale, but to get a toy, you kissed the Swineherd. Now you have your reward.”
So he went into his Kingdom, shut the door and bolted it, and she had to stand outside singing:
“Ah, you dear Augustus,
All, all is lost.”
(From the Danish of Hans C. Andersen, translated by Marie L. Shedlock.)
The Princess and the Pea.
There was once a Prince who wished to marry a Princess, but she must be a real Princess. He travelled all over the world to find such a one; but there was always something the matter. There were plenty of Princesses, but whether they were real or not, he could not be quite certain. There was always something that was not quite right. So he came home again, feeling very sad, for he was so anxious to have a real Princess.
One evening a terrible storm came on: it lightened, and thundered and the rain came down in torrents. It was quite terrible. Then there came a knocking at the town-gate, and the old King went down to open it. There, outside, stood a Princess. But gracious! the rain and bad weather had made her look dreadful. The water was running out of her hair on to her clothes, into the tips of her shoes and out at the heels, and yet she said she was a real Princess.
“We shall soon find out about that,” thought the old Queen. But she said never a word. She went into the bedroom, took off all the bed-clothes and put a pea on the bedstead. Then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea and twenty eider-down quilts upon the mattresses. And the Princess was to sleep there at night.