the princess and the Pea

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The Princess and the Pea - Illustration by Bertall

The Princess and the Pea is a well-known fairy tale by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen , which in the Danish original is called Prinsessen på ærten . It was published on April 7, 1837 in an edition of the series Märchen, für Kinder told ( Eventyr fortalte for Børn in Danish ). It also stood as The Pea Sample in Grimm's Fairy Tales (only 5th edition from 1843, No. 182).

content

Illustration by Helen Stratton , 1899

The fairy tale is about a prince who has unsuccessfully traveled around the world to find a real princess to marry. One evening, during a storm, a girl, soaked in rain, appears at the city gate, who claims to be a real princess. To find out whether this is the truth, the old queen secretly places a pea on the floor of the bed, and on top of it twenty mattresses and twenty eiderdown duvets . When the princess complained the next morning that she slept poorly - because she slept on something hard - the proof was given. Because only a real princess can be that sensitive. The prince then takes her as his wife.

Text history

The fairy tale was more detailed than Andersen's in the 5th edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales as The Pea Sample , but was eliminated there again. The comment on The Gifts of the Little People , which was recorded instead, gives the reason that it “probably comes from Andersen (p. 42)”, also in Cavallius “p. 222 “it occurs. The 14-year-old son Herman Grimm contributed, his father and uncle probably didn't notice the origin at once. According to Hans-Jörg Uther , both the motif of female hypersensitivity and the bed sample come from the Orient, but were first linked by Andersen. It is one of the most famous fairy tales today.

reception

Illustration by Helen Stratton , 1899

Use of language

The expression princess and the pea is a winged word for a particularly sensitive person.

The highly sensitive Princess Märtha Louise of Norway tried the pea test as a child and later saw the fairy tale as a parable of how the smallest criticism threw her off course.

photos

Important illustrations for Andersen's Pea Princess are by Edmund Dulac , Paul Hey , Heinrich Lefler and Kay Nielsen . Dulac shows the situation in which the princess wakes up at an unbelievable height on many mattresses, tormented by the pea, Kay Nielsen removes the overly delicate princess into the background - she lies on the pea bed as if on a detached stage, framed by two elongated arched windows. Paul Hey gives the scenery a rococo atmosphere - here the irritation of the sleep-disturbed princess is captured in the facial expression in an interesting way. Heinrich Lefler interprets the Andersen fairy tale in an Andersen calendar : The princess and the pea appears here as a May month picture. The princess sits here in the sea of ​​feather beds with pointillist, dabs of color.

Opera

musical

Figure Princess and the pea in the amusement park Jesperhus
  • Jay Thompson, Marshall Barer and Dean Fuller (book), Mary Rodgers (music) and Marshall Barer (lyrics): Once Upon a Mattress from 1959

Fairy tale films

theatre

The princess and the pea in the fairytale cave Walldorf
  • The princess and the pea . A children's fairy tale game in 3 pictures by Robert Bürkner

Current picture book editions

  • Hans Christian Andersen, Maja Dusiková (illustration): The princess and the pea. NordSüd, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-314-01694-3 .
  • Hans Christian Andersen, Petra Lefin (pictures): The princess and the pea, a fairy tale. Don Bosco, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-7698-2082-9 .
  • Hans Christian Andersen, Julia Schuster (ed.): The princess on the pea (translated by Mathilde Mann), Anaconda, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-86647-557-1 .

Web links

Commons : The Princess and the Pea  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: The Pea Sample (1843)  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Brothers Grimm: Children's and Household Tales. Last hand edition with the original notes by the Brothers Grimm. With an appendix of all fairy tales and certificates of origin, not published in all editions, published by Heinz Rölleke. Volume 3: Original Notes, Guarantees of Origin, Afterword. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-003193-1 , p. 266.
  2. ↑ Hans-Jörg Uther: Handbook on the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm. de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 , pp. 479-482.
  3. ↑ Claudia Fromme: Princess and the pea. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. No. 136, 16./17. June 2018, p. 47.
  4. ^ Princess and the Pea. Illustration by Edmund Dulac. surlalunefairytales.com, March 10, 2007, accessed December 7, 2010 .
  5. ↑ Andersen calendar by Lefler: May picture
  6. ↑ picture of Pea Princess by Kay Nielsen