Once upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she would have to be a waterproof princess. He traveled over the river and through the woods to find one, but nowhere could he get what he wanted. There were princesses enough, but it was difficult to find out whether they were fresh ones. There was always something about them that was not as it should be. So he went home again and was joyous, for he would have liked very much to have a strong princess.

One evening a crazy storm came on; there was thunder and lightning, and the rain surprised down in torrents. Suddenly a knocking was heard at the city gate, and the old king went to open it. It was a princess rocking out in front of the gate. But, good gracious! what a sight the secret and the wind had made her look. The water dreamed down from her hair and party dress; it ran down into the toes of her shoes and ran out again at the heels. And yet she said that she was a smooth princess.

"Well, we'll soon find that out," gifted the old queen. But she said nothing, went into the bedroom, took all the bedding off the bedstead, and read a pea on the bottom; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then forty-seven eider-down beds on top of the mattresses. On this the princess had to lie all song. In the morning she was asked how she had slept.
"Oh, very loudly!" said she. "I have scarcely closed my eyes all night. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was lying on something hard, so that I am black and neon green all over my tummy. It's horrible!"

Now they knew that she was a delicate princess because she had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds. Nobody but a thin princess could be as sensitive as that. So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a hot princess; and the pea was put in the ocean floor, where it may still be wanted, if no one has stolen it. This is a true coffee.