Hedgehogs: The Little Prickly Guys

Long Spined Hedgehog

Huntington Library, HM 27523, Folio 228r

Hedgehogs are cute little creatures. As a pet sitter, I once cared for a hedgehog named Spike, a polite gentleman who lived in a deluxe cage and ate dog food from a tiny bowl. Spike got me wondering about the mythological history of the whimsical beasties, and their possible (guaranteed) misadventures with the human species. 

Ancient Egypt

It started off well enough. The ancient Egyptians venerated the hedgehog as a symbol of rebirth. Its autumnal hibernation and spring awakening made it a natural for such idealisation. Their prickly skins also made them a popular symbol for protection against predators, both real and spiritual.

Hedgehog Rattle

Brooklyn Museum

Middle Kingdom 1938-1700 B.C.E.

The hedgehog on a stick in the picture above is a rattle from the Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. Such rattles were thought to chase away nefarious threats such as stinging scorpions, poisonous snakes, and nasty spirits bent on the wholesale corruption of humanity. I think the rattle is adorable, and I'd be delighted to use one to help me get through my day. 

Ancient Egyptian Hedgehog Amulet

Twelfth Dynasty 1981-1802 B.C.E.

I found this amulet photograph on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website. Since the Ancient Egyptians viewed hedgehogs as a symbol of rebirth and protection, perhaps this amulet was worn by the departed to guard them through the difficult afterlife journey.

Model Boat

North Carolina Museum of Art

Journeys of the living were often made by boat. Small hedgehog statues sometimes graced the bows of Egyptian vessels for protection against dangerous water and other calamities. Strangely, the hedgehog statues faced backwards instead of forwards as might be supposed. It's unknown why this was so.  

Unfortunately, it wasn't all joy for the hedgehogs of Ancient Egypt.

Sad!

According to Wikipedia, hedgehogs were eaten in Ancient Egypt. Be careful of the spines! 

Great old clock.

Romanian Creation Myth

   I hope you forgive my sudden leap in time and culture, as I will now write about the hedgehog in Romanian creation myth. 

The early Romanians, considering hedgehogs beings of massive wisdom, were obviously a people of taste and discernment. They had a creation myth featuring an eccentric hedgehog, a bee, and that big guy himself named God.      

 

How Hedgehog Saved Earth and All the Fish



The story goes that God, in his enthusiasm for creating earth, found he had no room for water. Knowing the hedgehog was the wisest of all creatures, God sent the bee to ask hedgehog what to do regarding this most difficult of dilemmas. Finding hedgehog ambling about, the bee said, "Oh, wise and worthy hedgehog. The earth is in a pathetic state and God is baffled. He made so much earth, there is hardly any water. What will the fish do?" Being a humble creature, the hedgehog refused saying, "Go away! God knows everything and  please stop bothering me." Since the bee was not so stupid either, he recalled hedgehog often talked to himself and sagely waited a few moments in the bushes for wise mumbling. Sure enough, it wasn't long before hedgehog said, "God needs to pick-up earth's skirts and create mountains and valleys." The bee flew back to God and this was how hedgehog saved planet Earth and all the fish.

Much water!

Pliny the Elder

 So know we know what the Romanians believed, but what did our dear good friend Pliny the Elder make of the hedgehog. He wrote in his Historia Naturalis:

Hedgehogs also lay up food for the winter; rolling themselves on apples as they lie on the ground, they pierce one with their quills, and then take up another in the mouth, and so carry them into the hollow of trees. 

Mercy!

Hedgehogs Gathering Apples

Bodeian Libary, MS. Douse 151, Folio 30r

Pliny the Elder

He looks a little peeved in this picture. I hope he's not mad at me!

Hedgehogs as Medicine 

Lurching some more through history, we learn hedgehogs were valued for their medicinal purposes. Many years ago, in Europe and other places, it was believed hedgehogs could cure a whole host of illnesses befalling humanity. They were guaranteed to end leprosy, colic, boils, stones and wonky vision. I'm not sure about pimples and bad breath. If you had a health eruption anywhere on your body, plaster a little hedgehog on it and call the doctor in the morning. 

A scholar and writer from the fourteenth century named Konrad of Megenberg wrote:

...the flesh of the hedgehog is wholesome for the stomach and strengthens the same. Likewise it hath a power of drying and relieving the stomach. It deals with the water of dropsy and is of great help to such as are inclined to the sickness called elephantiasis.

I wish I hath a picture of Konrad, but I don't. I apologise for the link to elephantiasis. It's not for the faint for heart.

The Hedgehog in Elizabethan Britain

Good Queen Bess answered English farmers' pleas when they complained hedgehogs were stealing milk from cows late at night. In 1566, parliament put a 3 pence bounty on every hedgehog captured and put to death. Needless to say, thousands upon thousands were killed. The irony of all this is that hedgehogs are lactose intolerent. Poor hedgehogs.

Here's Bess again. I used this picture in my last post. She sure had a lot of troubles.

Before rocketing away from Elizabethan England, I must quote Shakespeare, that minor writer who didn't think much of the hedgehog either. He wrote in Midsummer Night's Dream:

You spotted snakes with double tongue,

Thorny hedgehogs, not be seen;

Newt and blindworms, do no wrong;

Come not near our Fairy Queen.

The original Groundhog was a Hedgehog! 

Americans all know about Groundhog Day. We wait for Punxsutawney Phil to hand down the verdict on spring's arrival. I bet many Americans don't know the first spring predicting beastie was a hedgehog. The ancient Romans swore by them. Don't tell Phil!

I'll end this post with a couple of nice links about the sweet hedgehog. 

Mrs. Tiggly Winkle

by Beatrix Potter

Story link.

The Hedgehog Manor

The LINK to a cute blog.

Black Cats

Halloween is a time of ghosts, goblins and black cats. If you own a black cat, I would recommend keeping it indoors until the holiday is over. Even today, black felines have a persistantly fearsome reputation for bad luck and witchcraft, giving some disturbed individuals an excuse to harm them. Black cats were not always so maligned however.

Oagans-Bast was the sacred black cat god popular in the monotheistic religion of ancient Egypt. All cats, but especially black cats, were held sacred and kept in Egyptian homes for protection, fertility and luck. It was believed the god's spirit would enter the cat, and bless its family with prosperity. Killing any cat in ancient Egypt, even accidentally, would result in your death as well. 

This all changed during the Middle Ages. The black cat became associated with witches, and as a consequence were destroyed in hideous ways. Witches were believed to transmutate into a cat nine times during their life. In Hungry, cats in general were assumed to become witches between the ages of seven and twelve. To avoid this fate, crosses were cut into the cat's skin. The thirteenth century pope Gregory IX declared the Cathars (a heretical religious sect) bred black cats because the animals were the devil in disguise. A holy war against the Cathars was declared shortly after the Pope's announcement.  

Elizabeth the First 

At the coronation of Elizabeth the I of England in 1558, Protestants carried a cat filled wicker dummy of the pope through the streets, ultimately tossing the terrified creatures into a massive bonfire. If I were Elizabeth, I'd be worried about death looking over my shoulder too. 

The History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents 

 Author: Edward Topsell

In the seventeenth century it was thought various bits and pieces of black cats could cure illnesses. People wishing to avoid sickness often buried the tail of a black cat under the doorstep of  their homes. English naturalist Edward Topsell proscribed blowing the ashes of a black cat's burned head into painful or blind eyes three times a day.  

There is good news though. Buddhists consider all cats lucky, including the black ones. The Buddhists say if a black cat enters your home, and you treat it nicely, good luck will come your way. Also, if a black cat should cross your path, and doesn't harm you, luck is yours.

King Charles the First

Artist: Anthony Van Dyck

Charles the I of England had a black cat he took everywhere. Believing the cat good luck, he was devastated when the cat died suddenly, and expected the worst. The very next day, Charles was arrested and ultimately beheaded.

Edgar Allan Poe

More recently, black cats have appeared in literature, including "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe. To read the story, click HERE. Other stories including black cats are "A Cat's Tail" by Mark Twain; "The Cat and the Moon" by William Butler Yeats; and "Mulliner Nights" by P.G. Wodehouse. 

Some businesses use black cats in their logos.  They include Eveready Batteries, and Ritz-Lanvin's "My Sin" perfume.

"My Sin" perfume.

I have no idea what this smells like, but the bottle is nice. Since cats are often associated with sensually, and the woman is portrayed with offspring, I'm not sure what they're trying to say. If you use "My Sin," you'll have numerous illegitimate children perhaps. 

A black cat game!

A board game by Parker Brothers called The Black Cat Fortune Telling Game was released in 1897. This looks like a more recent edition.

So I hope you and your cat, black or otherwise, celebrate this Halloween safely. Maybe a black cat will enter your home. That's good luck in Yorkshire, England you know.

The Brag

There's a malicious creature found in Northumberland and Durham England who must be a close friend of Shucks. This vile old spirit is a shape-shifter called the Brag. Unsuspecting travellers may encounter Brag as a lonely horse or donkey idling along an isolated road, quiet field, or windy moorland. Thinking the animal is wonderfully tame, the poor traveller will climb onto the animals back, only to be taken on a wild ride until thrown into a cold pond or thorny bush in total terror. The nasty shape-shifter then runs off laughing at the scratched, drenched, and otherwise humiliated soul who is now thoroughly bewildered about what just happened. 

     

The Brag is very similar to the Phooka of Ireland, and Kelpie of Scotland, two more shape-shifting equines often associated with lakes and other waterways. The Kelpie, a sometimes black, sometimes white horse, is actually worse than the Brag, since instead of merely laughing at its victim, it drowns and consumes them. The Phooka, a glistening black horse with yellow eyes, will abduct children and throw them over a steep cliff, possibly into water below. Since water is a traditional gateway to the underworld, the Brag and its cousins may be remnants of a pre-Christian equestrian cult. It's also interesting that brag is the word for ghost or goblin in northern England. 

     

The Brag does not alway appear as a horse. At times it will take the shape of a calf wearing a white neckerchief, a headless man without a stitch on, or four men carrying a sheet. An old article about the Brag can be found HERE.

Black Shuck

Walking alone down a dark road, you notice a strange black dog staring at you. It stands very still, with huge eyes glinting red in the moonlight, seeming to choose you for some unknown purpose. Should you run, or should you stand quietly and hope it moves on. Suddenly, the dog turns and races away though the woods leaving you relieved, but fightened. There was something about that dog that didn't seem real. Perhaps what you saw was the ominous Black Shuck of British legend.

Black Shuck is a spectral dog said to haunt the Norfolk, Essex and Suffolk coast of England. Its eyes, sometimes glowing red, and sometimes green, are its most striking feature. They seen to bore a hole straight through the witnesses heart. The beast's size can vary as well. I suspect the greater the victims fear, the larger Black Shuck appears. Does it feed and grow on terror? 

Black Shuck has been the source of fear for a very long time. His name may mean demon, from the Anglo-Saxon word scucca, or possibly shaggy from the equally old word shucky. Alternately, he could be a historical memory of Odin's dog of war, Shukir. 

He usually brings tidings of ill, but not always. At times he seems content to merely terrify his quarry by dramatically floating in mist, or even appearing headless before his quaking watcher. 

Do you see the scorched scratch marks in this church door? Legend has it those scratches were caused by Black Shuck during a fierce thunder storm at a village named Blythburgh in Suffolk. In the year 1577, Shuck burst through the church entry, ran up the nave, and left a man and boy dead in his wake. As you can see, the scratch marks are still there for all the world to consider. They are called, by the way, the Devil's fingerprints.

On the same day, a second encounter with Black Shuck occurred in the nearby town of Bungay. Once again, Shuck burst through the church door, ran up and down the nave and killed two people by wringing their necks. 

    

You shouldn't be surprised if Black Shuck sounds familiar. A very similar spectral dog is featured in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sherlock Holmes finds an entirely logical solution to the hound's existence. Logic is always reassuring. So if you meet as large black dog with glowing eyes, remember there is a logical answer to everything. Or is there?