Based on Andersen's story 'The princess and the pea', this paper addresses questions that affect the meaning and dissemination of a text that is part of the canon of classical tales and the subject of various discursive analyses. First, we look at how the extreme sensitivity of the protagonist has been interpreted and reflect on the possible misogynistic message of the story. In this regard, we discuss the rewritings of fairy tales proposed by feminist criticism and the appearance of new metafictional stories that engage in an intertextual dialogue with the classics. We also address the presence and current use of tales involving the figure of the princess in schools today. In the context of 'glocalization', which gives visibility to local cultures, we discuss tale type ATU 704 and Catalan versions of this folktale such as 'Tres al·lotes fines'. We show how folk tales are used as an element of collective memory capable of representing the identity. The 'Delicada de Gandia', the hypersensitive legendary heroine in Valencian folk literature, has gone from characterizing a negative quality to becoming a symbol of several aspects of local identity.