Online reading of the book The Princess and the Pea The Princess and the Pea. Hans Christian Andersen The Princess and the Pea

Once upon a time there was a prince, and he wanted to take a princess for himself, only a real one. So he traveled all over the world, but there was no such thing. There were plenty of princesses, but were they real? Before that, he could not reach in any way; so he returned home with nothing and was very sad - he really wanted to get a real princess.

One evening a bad weather broke out: the lightning flashed, the thunder rumbled, and the rain poured down like a bucket; what a horror!

Suddenly there was a knock on the city gates, and the old king went to open the door.

The princess was at the gate. My God, what did she look like! Water ran from her hair and dress straight into the toes of her shoes and flowed out of her heels, but she still assured that she was a real princess!

"Well, we'll find out!" - thought the old queen, but did not say a word and went into the bedroom. There she removed all the mattresses and pillows from the bed and laid a pea on the boards; she laid twenty mattresses on top of the pea, and twenty more down jackets on top.

The princess was laid on this bed for the night.

In the morning they asked her how she slept.

Ah, very stupid! - said the princess. I almost didn't close my eyes! God knows what kind of bed I had! I was lying on something so hard that my whole body is now bruised! Just awful!

It was then that everyone saw that she was a real princess! She felt the pea through forty mattresses and down jackets - only a real princess could be such a delicate person.

And the prince married her. Now he knew that he was taking on a real princess! And the pea was given to the cabinet of curiosities; there she lies, unless someone stole her.

About the fairy tale

The Princess and the Pea: A Short Tale of Cunning and Tenderness

The great Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen left a huge number of brilliant fairy tales as a legacy to mankind. The author himself did not like being called a children's storyteller. Because, as Hans claimed, he wrote smart stories for adults. His fairy tales contain a meaning that parents must first understand, and then convey the words of the great writer to the new younger generation.

Note to readers!

G. H. Andersen was the most popular foreign writer in the USSR. Over 70 years in the period from 1918-1988, more than 500 editions of the great storyteller were published with a total circulation of 100,000,000 copies.

Descendants must say a huge thank you to the Russian translator of Scandinavian writers Anna Vasilievna Ganzen. It was she who did a titanic job, translated into Russian and conveyed to Russian-speaking readers the meaning of brilliant fairy tales. Many years have passed, and now any child or adult can get acquainted with the work of the kind storyteller Hans Christian Andersen.

The benefits of smart fairy tales for child development

Dear readers, all the popular fairy tales of the famous Danish writer are posted on our picture pages. We are trying to preserve the Soviet literary heritage and convey to children the beauty of the Russian word.

Read fairy tales with children and feel the benefits for their harmonious development:

- Large letters and large print on the pages will allow you to quickly memorize words and whole sentences.

- Colorful illustrations will help visualize the events from the fairy tale and imagine the main characters.

- Reading at night has a good effect on the child's nervous system, calms and helps to see beautiful fairy-tale dreams.

Fairy tales are meant for family reading aloud. This is a great opportunity to spend time with children and pass on the experience of older generations to them.

Dear parents, kindergarten teachers, school teachers! Use good smart fairy tales for the harmonious development of kids. Did you have a free minute? Read a fairy tale to a child, and another sprout of goodness, light and faith in a happy future will sprout in his soul.

About the plot of the short fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea"

How is the plot of a new magical story born in the storyteller's head? Very simple! He looks at some object or observes a natural phenomenon, and fantasy begins to work and create new images in the imagination. For example, when Andersen found a piece of tin in the ashes, he immediately imagined a one-legged tin soldier. Only a real genius's imagination gives birth to unusually beautiful fairy tales!

How did the princess and the pea appear? Most likely, the writer saw an unfortunate wet girl on the street and thought that she could be a princess. And then he came up with a lonely prince who has been looking for his true soul mate all his life.

Further, the writer drew in his imagination the castle, where the wet princess knocked. And what did the cunning queen do? She decided to give the girl a test. The prince's caring mother put one dry pea under 20 mattresses and under 20 featherbeds. And the princess could not sleep all night because something was disturbing her!

Is it true? It is hard to say!

Maybe the queen, in order to marry her son, decided to go for a little trick? Most likely, she hinted at the hidden pea to the princess. In order for the young to find happiness, did the queen wrap everyone around her finger? Everything can be, we don’t know the answers, and we invite the guys to think out the plot of a simple short fairy tale on their own.

Once upon a time there was a prince, he wanted to marry a princess, but only a real princess. So he traveled all over the world, looking for such, but everywhere there was something wrong; there were plenty of princesses, but whether they were real, he could not fully recognize this, there was always something wrong with them. So he returned home and was very sad: he really wanted a real princess.

One evening a terrible storm broke out; lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, the rain poured like buckets, what a horror! And suddenly there was a knock at the city gates, and the old king went to open the door.

The princess was at the gate. My God, what did she look like from the rain and bad weather! Water dripped from her hair and dress, dripped right into the toes of her shoes and flowed out of her heels, and she said that she was a real princess.

"Well, we'll find out!" thought the old queen, but she said nothing, but went into the bedchamber, took all the mattresses and pillows off the bed, and laid a pea on the boards, and then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and on the mattresses twenty more eiderdown duvets.

On this bed they laid the princess for the night.

In the morning they asked her how she slept.

Ah, terribly bad! the princess answered. I haven't closed my eyes all night. God knows what I had in bed! I was lying on something hard and now I have bruises all over my body! It's just awful what it is!

Then everyone realized that in front of them was a real princess. Why, she felt the pea through twenty mattresses and twenty eiderdown duvets! Only a real princess can be so tender.

The prince took her as his wife, because now he knew that he was taking a real princess for himself, and the pea ended up in the cabinet of curiosities, where she can be seen to this day, if only no one stole her.

Know that this is a true story!

We read, watch and listen to children's fairy tales:

Once upon a time there was a Prince who really wanted to marry, but at all costs he wanted to marry a real Princess. He traveled all over the world in search of a suitable bride. And although he came across many princesses, he could not decide whether they were real ... And in the end, the Prince returned home in great sadness - he very passionately wanted to marry a real Princess! One evening there was a terrible thunderstorm. Thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, and the rain poured down like a bucket! And so, in the midst of a terrible bad weather, there was a knock at the door of the castle.

The door was opened by the old King himself. On the threshold stood a young girl, soaked and trembling. Water flowed through her long hair and dress, streamed out of her shoes ... And yet ... the girl claimed that she was the real Princess! "We'll see soon, my dear," thought the old Queen. She hurried into the bedroom and placed the pea on the boards of the bed with her own hand. Then she laid on top, one after another, as many as twenty featherbeds, and then - as many more blankets on the most delicate swan down. It was on this bed that the girl was laid.

And the next morning she was asked how she slept.

Oh, I had a terrible night! - answered the girl. I didn't close my eyes for a minute! God only knows what was in that bed! It seemed to me that I was lying on something very hard, and in the morning my whole body was bruised! Now everyone is convinced that the girl is a real Princess. After all, only a real Princess can feel a tiny pea through twenty duvets and as many duvets! Yes, only the real Princess can be so sensitive!

The Prince immediately married the Princess, and the pea is kept in the royal museum to this day.

You can go and see for yourself - unless someone stole it ...

Everyone knows Andersen's fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea". Once upon a time there was a king and a queen. And they had the only son who planned to marry. The prince traveled all over the world, and never found a bride for himself. Of course, he saw a lot of princesses, but how do you know which one is real. And he returned home empty-handed and grieving. And suddenly one evening (and it was raining outside, lightning flashed), there was a knock at the gates of the palace. At the gate stood the princess, who asked to be let in. To check whether she really is a real princess (and all princesses, as you know, are terrible sissies), the queen laid a pea on the bare boards, and then covered the pea with twenty mattresses, and even twenty eiderdown featherbeds. The princess was put into this bed. In the morning, when the guest complained that she slept like on cobblestones, and that's why her whole body was bruised, the king and queen realized that she really was a real princess. And the prince fell in love with her.
That's the whole story. Yes, everyone knows her. But not everyone may know that this fairy tale, which seems to be Andersen's own invention, is in fact a free adaptation of a Danish folk tale. And Andersen heard it as the famous "Fire" as a child, "at gatherings and while cleaning hops."
"The Princess and the Pea" (together with the fairy tale "The Flint" and two others) was included in the first issue of Andersen's "Tales for Children", published in 1835. However, Andersen as a storyteller was not immediately recognized. Until then, he had written only novels and plays. And when they saw his name on "Tales for Children", critics, who, unlike ordinary readers, express their opinion in newspapers and magazines, began to say that Andersen "fell into childishness."
Not all of them liked The Princess and the Pea either. One critic wrote that the tale, you see, "is devoid of salt." And he considered it not only "indelicate, but even directly impermissible on the part of the author to inspire children ... as if noble persons are always so terribly sensitive." This critic went so far as to advise Andersen that he should "no longer waste time writing fairy tales for children."
“Meanwhile,” Andersen said, recalling this unkind review, “I could not overcome my desire to continue writing them.”
The time came, and Andersen, the author of plays and novels, himself realized that fairy tales - he said so - "the main kind of my work." Fairy tales glorified his name not only in his native Denmark, but throughout the world. And wherever Andersen went (and he traveled a lot), he everywhere felt his fame as a storyteller.
The prediction of a nameless fortune-teller came true, which his mother heard when she let her fourteen-year-old son go from little Odense to big Copenhagen. Andersen recalled that his mother resisted his desire to leave for a long time. Finally, yielding to his entreaty, "she sent for the healer and made her tell fortunes ... on cards and coffee grounds."
“Your son will be a great man! said the old woman. “The day will come when his native city of Odense will light an illumination in his honor.”
Almost fifty years later, or rather, on December 6, 1869, Andersen arrived in Odense, where he was born and where he was now honored as a great man. The city was in festive decoration. Orchestras thundered. People sang his songs. “I was infinitely happy…” Andersen recalled. Everywhere I met friendly looks, everyone wanted to say a kind word to me, shake my hand. And in the evening he read his fairy tale to the children. "The prediction of the old fortune-teller, who said that in Odense an illumination would be lit in honor of me, came true in the most beautiful form."
During his life, Andersen composed more than one hundred and seventy fairy tales and fairy tales, and the fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea" sparkles among them like a bright star.
The prince's dream of a real princess, her appearance in a storm, a bed made of the lightest eider down, the prince's love flared up, and even a small ordinary pea - everything in this fairy tale breathes poetry, which is permeated with the subtlest irony. Remember the very end of the story? “And the pea was sent to the museum. There it still lies, unless someone took it!” In a word, as always with Andersen, the poetic with the ironic, the lofty and the funny merged, and thanks to this the fairy tale became interesting to all ages.
In some translations into Russian, the tale was called "The Real Princess" - the translators emphasized the essence of this fairy tale with this name.
And although The Princess and the Pea is perhaps Andersen's shortest fairy tale and can all fit on one book page, I wanted to expand it into a play for a sounding children's theater, because this fairy tale has a quite perceptible dramatic plot. That is, to make a play that would preserve the whole structure and mood of Andersen's fairy tale. Andersen would say about it this way: "An alien plot entered ... into my flesh and blood, I recreated it in myself and only then released it into the light." All the characters of the fairy tale began to act in the play - the king, queen, prince, princess - and new faces. So that they could not only talk, but also sing, the poetess Novella Matveeva composed the lyrics, and composer Mikhail Meerovich wrote the music for them and for the entire performance.
There are amazing performers in this show. The roles of the storyteller and the king are played by Rostislav Plyatt, and the role of the queen is played by Maria Babanova. This is one of the last roles of Maria Ivanovna Babanova, and her last role, where she sang.
Vladimir Glotser

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