So we're going to talk about the princess and the pea. The princess and the pea is a fairy tale which was

written by Hans Christian Anderson. And usually I don't like to interpret fairy tales that are,

and have an author, you could say, that are written by an individual. But because this story has

an interesting relationship to Jack and the Beanstalk, which I interpreted last time, I thought it would be a good way to show people how these themes connect to each other and how they have surprising links between stories.

Music This is Jonathan Pajot. Welcome to the symbolic world. The story of the princess of the pea is very simple. Most people know it very well. A prince

is looking for a princess. But every princess that he meets, he doubts whether or not she's a real

princess. And so he goes out on a trip and he travels

all the different kingdoms around his own kingdom to find a real princess. But every time he meets a

princess, there's something off about her. You know, she's too tall, she's too pretty, she's not pretty

enough. She's, uh, she has certain faults, which means that she is not able to see her.

He always has doubts on whether or not she's a real princess. And so he comes back to the kingdom,

disappointed that he wasn't able to find his real princess. And one day, a strange woman comes to the

door, knocks on the door of the castle. They let her in, she's drenched, she's dripping

wet, and all she can say is, I'm a real princess. And so the prince is astounded to hear her say

something like that, but they don't know who she is, they don't know where she's from, they have

no idea whether or not what she's saying is true.

And so the mother of the prince devises a test to find out whether or not this is true.

She places a pea at the bottom of 20 mattresses and 20 blankets.

And the princess, you know, dries herself, gets dressed for the night, and then she sleeps on these 20 mattresses.

Now the next day, when they wake up, the mother asks the princess whether or not she slept well.

And the answer is, of course, no, I didn't sleep well.

There was something keeping me up. There was something hard in the bed, which was preventing me from sleep. And through that, that is how they recognize that in fact,

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