Intolerable Amounts of Hedgehog

After a long break from posting, I’m back at collecting the hedgehog lore, among other things.

Jackal and Hedgehog is taken from Jilali El Koudia’s Moroccan Folktales. A second hedgehog tale is also to be found there, titled Wolf and Hedgehog.

Once upon a time a jackal and a hedgehog were good friends. One day they agreed to steal beans from a peasant’s underground stock. They discussed their plan of action. The hedgehog volunteered to go down into the thasraft to fill the sacks with beans. When the jackal pulled up the last sack, he said, ” Goodbye, my friend.”

The hedgehog felt betrayed. “How can you leave me in this trap?” he asked.

“Right now it’s not so bad,” the jackal replied. “But just wait until tomorrow morning when the peasant arrives and finds you!”

The hedgehog had to think fast to find a way out. “All right, my friend,” he told the jackal in a pitiful tone. “Please take one sack along to my children.”

The hedgehog filled up the sack, then dived into it himself, hiding under the beans. The jackal pulled the heavy sack out and then left.

On the road, the hedgehog put out his head and started whistling. The jackal thought it was the peasant approaching and ran away fast. When he reached the hedgehog’s children, he told them the peasant had caught their father. But before he had even finished his sentence, the hedgehog jumped out laughing. “Thank God,” said the hedgehog, “now I know you for what you are!”

*

Sometime later, they agreed to go hunting together. They came across a herd of sheep. The hedgehog was assigned to keep the shepherd busy while the jackal snatched a sheep and ran away with it. When the hedgehog was sure the jackal had escaped, he followed him.

When they reached a valley, they slaughtered the sheep and took off the skin. Suddenly, the hedgehog shouted, “The shepherd is coming!”

Frightened, the jackal ran away and disappeared from sight. The hedgehog took the entire sheep and went home with it.

Later, the hedgehog was making a meal for his children. The jackal smelled it cooking and asked him for a bowl. When he had tasted it, he said, “Oh, how delicious it is! It tastes rich. Where did you get the fat?”

“I pulled it from my armpits,” replied the hedgehog. To convince the jackal, he had hidden a piece of sheep’s fat under his armpits and used it to give him a demonstration.

The jackal went away and tried the trick again and again. Every day he tried taking fat from his armpits until it became very painful. Then he started to bleed and died.

I currently have two children’s books out from the library, both hedgehog tales.

The first is The Hedgehog Boy: A Latvian Folktale, retold by Jane Langton and illustrated by Ilse Plume. This is essentially a fancied up version of the ‘hedgehog becomes prince’ stories which I’ve recently posted a number of. Rather than copy the whole story here, I’ll just will cover some of the variations.

The hedgehog, in this tale, is a gift from the Forest Mother…

There sat the Forest Mother, wearing a crown of white clover.

She smiled at him and gave him a basket. “Take it home with you,” she said. “Put it behind the stove, and do not open it for three days.”

The farmer takes the basket home, and resisting temptation, both his wife and himself wait the three days and are rewarded with a hedgehog baby hybrid!

The story continues with the hedgehog boy taking care of the farmers pigs as he grows up.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest, the king’s three daughters, during the festival of Midsummer Eve, make their way to the river, hoping to look into the water to see the faces of their future husbands. The two older daughters both see old men of power, whereas the youngest has revealed to her that she shall marry the hedgehog boy.

But the youngest princess saw the face of a strange creature, and she was terrified. It wasn’t the face of a man at all. It was the prickly face of a hedgehog!

Frightened, she takes off on her horse, who she looses control over. Enter hedgehog boy!

Luckily the hedgehog boy was nearby, sitting beside the bonfire with his pigs. When he heard the thud of the horse’s hooves and the cries of the princess, he ran to meet her, and grabbed the reins of the runaway horse.

The hedgehog boy asks her to stay with him by his fire, but the princess is afraid and leaves.

The story continues on with the hedgehog boy encountering the lost king in the woods. Here, rather than asking for the reward of the hand of any of the king’s daughters, the hedgehog boys asks specifically for the hand of his youngest daughter. The king refuses and leaves, only to reappear the next day, still lost. Again, the king refuses, and again the king leaves only to reappear, still lost the next day, when the king finally submits. The hedgehog boy leads the king out of the woods and states he will come for his bride the next Midsummer Eve.

When the hedgehog boy arrives for his bride, she is prepared for him. She accepts the fate because of the promise and they marry.

On their wedding night, the hedgehog boy sheds his skin and hangs it by the bed and the princess disposes of it while he sleeps. After some recovery, the youth is restored to health, the princess rejoices and the king names the bridegroom his heir.

The book is nicely illustrated and a better read than my above overview probably credits it.

The second book out from the library is The Best of the Bargain, a Polish tale retold by Janina Domanska. The book deals with two characters, Olek, the not so bright fox, and our hero, Hugo, the clever little hedgehog. Repeatedly, Hugo outwits poor Olek.

First, Olek asks Hugo to help him with his garden, offering to share half its yield with him and half from his apple orchard. Hugo accepts, asking Olek which half he will take, the half above the ground or below. Upon choosing that above the ground, Hugo declares that they will plant potatoes. Hugo walks away with all the potatoes and half the apples.

The next year, Olek returns with the same offer, only this time chooses the half of the crop that grows below the ground. Hugo declares they will sow wheat, and in the ends gets all the wheat and again half the apples.

Seeing that he was again tricked, Olek goes to a judge, who decides that the two will race and the winner of the race will get all the wheat and all the apples.

The race is a along the lines of the other ‘hedgehog wins the races against an unlikely opponent by outwitting him’ tales, but rather than there being just two hedgehogs involved, one at each end of the race, Hugo’s relative line the course and each start running as Olek draws near, with Hugo himself running, and winning the last stretch.

Olek wises up at the end, the next year refusing Hugo’s help.

Definitely one for younger readers, and I look forward to sharing this with my son tomorrow!