The Bagpipe Society

Hans My Hedgehog

Hans mein Igel, Brüder Grimm, KHM 108 (ATU 441)

There was once upon a time a countryman who had wealth and lived in a land of plenty, but he had no children. He wished so badly for a child, that he once said to his wife that he would even be happy with a hedgehog. Soon after that his wife became pregnant but the child she bore was a hedgehog in the upper half and a boy below. His wife told him that he had cursed them and he was christened as Hans my Hedgehog, and, as he could not lie in an ordinary bed because of his spikes, a straw bed was put for him behind the stove. He stayed there for eight years, and all the while the man grew resentful and wished his son would die. One day there was a fair in town and the man asked Hans what he would like brought home from it. He asked for some bagpipes, which he was duly given. Hans my Hedgehog then requested that his father go to the smithy to shoe his cockerel so that he could ride away from the house and never return. The man was happy with the opportunity to get rid of the boy and so did as

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