And yet she said she was a true Princess ! ` Well , we shall soon find that ! ' thought the old Queen . But she said nothing , and went into the sleeping-room , took off all the bed-clothes , and laid a pea on the bottom of the bed . Then she put twenty mattresses on top of the pea , and twenty eider-down quilts on the top of the mattresses . And this was the bed in which the Princess was to sleep . The next morning she was asked how she had slept . ` Oh , very badly ! ' said the Princess . ' I scarcely closed my eyes all night ! I am sure I do n't know what was in the bed . I laid on something so hard that my whole body is black and blue . It is dreadful ! ' Now they perceived that she was a true Princess , because she had felt the pea through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down quilts . No one but a true Princess could be so sensitive . So the Prince married her , for now he knew that at last he had got hold of a true Princess . And the pea was put into the Royal Museum , where it is still to be seen if no one has stolen it . Now this is a true story . THE BLUE MOUNTAINS There were once a Scotsman and an Englishman and an Irishman serving in the army together , who took it into their heads to run away on the first opportunity they could get . The chance came and they took it .
They went on travelling for two days through a great forest , without food or drink , and without coming across a single house , and every XXXXX they had to climb up into the trees through fear of the wild beasts that were in the wood .
Englishman Irishman Museum Prince Princess Scotsman bed-clothes night pea quilts