Grimm's Household Tales

There was once a countryman who had money and land in plenty, but no matter how rich he was, one thing was still lacking in his happiness: he had no children. Often when he went into the town with the other peasants, they mocked him and asked why he had no children. At last he became angry, and when he got home, he said, “I will have a child, even if it is a hedgehog.” Then his wife had a child who was a hedgehog in the upper part of his body and a boy in the lower, and when she saw the child, she was terrified and said, “See, now you have brought bad luck on us.” Then the man said, “What can be done now? The boy must be christened, but we will not be able to get a godfather for him.” The woman said, “And we cannot call him anything else but Hans the Hedgehog.”

When he was christened, the parson said, “He cannot go into any ordinary bed because of his spikes.” So a little straw was put behind the stove, and Hans the Hedgehog was laid on it. His mother could not nurse him, for he would have pricked her with his quills. So he lay there behind the stove for eight years, and his father was tired of him and thought, “If only he would die!” He did not die, however, but remained lying there. Now it happened that there was a fair in the town, and the peasant was about to go to it and asked his wife what he should bring back with him for her. “A little meat and a couple of white rolls, which are needed for the house,” she said. Then he asked the servant, and she wanted a pair of slippers and some stockings with embroidered clocks. At last he also said, “And what will you have, Hans my Hedgehog?” “Dear father,” he said, “do bring me bagpipes.” When, therefore, the father came home again, he gave his wife what he had bought for her: meat and white rolls. Then he gave the maid the slippers and the stockings with embroidered clocks, and lastly he went behind the stove and gave Hans the Hedgehog the bagpipes. And when Hans the Hedgehog had the bagpipes, he said, “Dear father, do go to the forge and get the rooster shod, and then I will ride away and never come back again.” At this the father was delighted to think that he was going to get rid of him and had the rooster shod for him, and when it was done, Hans the Hedgehog got on it and rode away, but he took swine and donkeys with him, which he intended to keep in the forest. When they got there, he made the rooster fly onto a high tree with him, and there he sat for many a long year and watched his donkeys and swine until the herd was quite large, and his father knew nothing about him. While he was sitting in the tree, however, he played his bagpipes and made music that was very beautiful. Once a king came traveling by who had lost his way and heard the music. He was astonished at it and sent his servant to look all around and see where this music came from. The servant spied about but saw nothing except a little animal sitting up aloft on the tree, which looked like a rooster with a hedgehog on it that made this music. Then the king told the servant to ask why he sat there and whether he knew the road that led to his kingdom. So Hans the Hedgehog descended from the tree and said he would show the way if the king would write a bond and promise him whatever he first met in the royal courtyard as soon as he arrived at home. Then the king thought, “I can easily do that. Hans the Hedgehog understands nothing, and I can write what I like.” So the king took pen and ink and wrote something, and when he had done it, Hans the Hedgehog showed him the way, and he got safely home. But his daughter, when she saw him from afar, was so overjoyed that she ran to meet him and kissed him. Then he remembered Hans the Hedgehog and told her what had happened. He had been forced to promise whatever first met him when he got home to a very strange animal that sat on a rooster as if it were a horse and made beautiful music. But instead of writing that the animal should have what it wanted, he had written that it should not have it. At this the princess was glad and said he had done well, for she never would have gone away with the hedgehog.

Hans the Hedgehog, however, looked after his donkeys and pigs and was always merry, and he sat in the tree and played his bagpipes.

Now it happened that another king came traveling by with his attendants and runners. He also had lost his way and did not know how to get home again because the forest was so large. He likewise heard the beautiful music from a distance and asked his runner what that could be and told him to go and see. Then the runner went under the tree and saw the rooster sitting at the top of it and Hans the Hedgehog on the rooster. The runner asked him what he was doing up there. “I am keeping my donkeys and my pigs, but what do you want?” The messenger said that they had lost their way and could not get back into their own kingdom and asked whether he would not show them the way. Then Hans the Hedgehog got down from the tree with the rooster and told the aged king that he would show him the way if he would give him, for his own, whatever first met him in front of his royal palace. The king said, “Yes,” and wrote a promise that Hans the Hedgehog would have it. That done, Hans rode on ahead of him on the rooster and pointed out the way, and the king reached his kingdom again in safety. When he got to the courtyard, there was great rejoicing. Now he had an only daughter, who was very beautiful. She ran to meet him, threw her arms around his neck, and was delighted to have her old father back again. She asked him where in the world he had been so long. So he told her how he had lost his way and had very nearly not come back at all. He had been traveling through a great forest, and a creature, half hedgehog and half man, sitting astride a rooster in a high tree and making music, had shown him the way and helped him get out. But in return he had promised the creature whatever first met him in the royal courtyard, and that was she herself, which made him unhappy now. But at this she promised that, for love of her father, she would willingly go with this Hans if he came.

Hans the Hedgehog, however, took care of his pigs, and the pigs multiplied until they became so many that the whole forest was filled with them. Then Hans the Hedgehog resolved not to live in the forest any longer and sent word to his father to have every sty in the village emptied, for he was coming with such a great herd that anyone who wished to could kill pigs. When his father heard that, he was troubled, for he thought Hans the Hedgehog had died long ago. Hans the Hedgehog, however, seated himself on the rooster, drove the pigs before him into the village, and ordered the slaughter to begin. Ha! There was such a killing and chopping that it might have been heard two miles away! After this Hans the Hedgehog said, “Father, let me have the rooster shod once more at the forge, and then I will ride away and never come back as long as I live.” Then the father had the rooster shod once more and was pleased that Hans the Hedgehog would never return again.

Hans the Hedgehog rode away to the first kingdom. There the king had commanded that whoever came mounted on a rooster and had bagpipes with him should be shot at, cut down, or stabbed by everyone, so that he could not enter the palace. When, therefore, Hans the Hedgehog came riding there, they all pressed forward against him with their pikes, but he spurred the rooster, and it flew up over the gate in front of the king’s window and landed there. Hans cried that the king must give him what he had promised, or he would take both his life and his daughter’s. Then the king began to speak gently to his daughter and to beg her to go away with Hans in order to save her own life and her father’s. So she dressed herself in white, and her father gave her a carriage with six horses and magnificent attendants together with gold and possessions. She seated herself in the carriage and placed Hans the Hedgehog beside her with the rooster and the bagpipes, and then they took leave and drove away, and the king thought he would never see her again. His expectation, however, proved false, for when they were a short distance from the town, Hans the Hedgehog took her pretty clothes off and pierced her with his hedgehog’s skin until she bled all over. “That is the reward of your falseness,” he said. “Go your way. I will not have you!” And at that he chased her home again, and she was disgraced for the rest of her life.

Hans the Hedgehog, however, rode on farther on the rooster, with his bagpipes, to the dominions of the second king to whom he had shown the way. This one, however, had arranged that if anyone resembling Hans the Hedgehog came, they were to present arms, give him safe conduct, shout “Long life!” to him, and lead him to the royal palace.

But when the king’s daughter saw him, she was terrified, for he looked far too strange. She remembered, however, that she could not change her mind, for she had given her promise to her father. So she welcomed Hans the Hedgehog and married him. He had to go with her to the royal table, and she sat by his side, and they ate and drank. When evening came and they wanted to go to sleep, she was afraid of his quills, but he told her not to be afraid, for no harm would come to her. He told the old king to appoint four men to watch by the door of the chamber and light a great fire. When he entered the room and was about to get into bed, he would creep out of his hedgehog’s skin and leave it lying there by the bedside, and the men were to run nimbly to it, throw it in the fire, and stay by it until it was consumed. When the clock struck eleven, he went into the chamber, stripped off the hedgehog’s skin, and left it lying by the bed. Then the men came and swiftly fetched it and threw it in the fire, and when the fire had consumed it, he was set free and lay there in bed in human form, but he was coal-black as if he had been burned. The king sent for his physician, who washed him with precious salves and anointed him, and he became white and was a handsome young man. When the king’s daughter saw that, she was glad, and the next morning they rose joyfully, ate and drank, and then the marriage was properly solemnized, and Hans the Hedgehog received the kingdom from the aged king.

When several years had passed, he went with his wife to his father and said that he was his son. The father, however, declared that he had no son. He had never had but one, and that one had been born like a hedgehog with spikes and had gone out into the world. Then Hans made himself known, and the old father rejoiced and went with him to his kingdom.

My tale is done, / And away it has run / To little August’s house.