Once Upon a Time in America, Once Upon a Time in the Midlands and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. These are all stories I’ve heard of with “Once Upon a...” in the title. Once I’d never heard of until recently is that of Once Upon A Mattress. After doing a little research I found that the story is based on the old fairytale, The Princess and the Pea.
The story is about a price who is seeking to marry a princess but cannot find a suitable wife. With the ones he does meet there is always something wrong with them and he is never sure if they are even princesses at all. On a stormy night a young woman claiming to be a princess calls upon the house for shelter and she is invited to stay. She is offered a bed to sleep on made of 20 mattresses and to test whether she is in fact a princess, a pea is placed under the last mattress. In the morning she complains about not getting any sleep because of something hard in the bed and the prince is happy. You see, only a real princess would be sensitive enough to be able to feel the pea through all them mattresses and they get married...and live happily ever after.
So there you have it, the story of The Princess and the Pea. I bet it would have been a different outcome though if she slept atop a tower of 20 memory foam mattresses.
