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.

Manticore

Manticore - The History of Four-footed Beasts

Author: Edward Topsell

I've seen some creepy smiles in my time, but this is the creepiest yet. The creepiest of all creepy smiles belongs to a charming beast called the manticore. As you can see, the manticore has the body of a lion, a man's head with rows of shark-like teeth, and a tail covered in poisonous quills capable of being shot from a good distance away. The beast also has a voice like a trumpet, the ability to leap great distances, and the energy to keep going like the Energizer Bunny. Any unfortunate human captured by the manticore was consumed entirely, including bones, clothing, and items being carried. In some later stories, the manticore would query its intended meal with riddles before killing. To tell you the truth, if I saw a manicore, I wouldn't need to wait for the flying quills or riddles. I'd be dead without them! The manicore's name means man-eater. It's a good name and states the case.

 

Manticore - Bedeian Library

This poor manicore looks more buck-toothed than shark-toothed.

It's "man-eater" name orginated from the Middle Persian martya, "human, mortal being" and xwar, "to eat".  Understandibly, the manticore was considered the most deadly creature in Asia. Though the myth was of Persian origin, the manticore was believed to reside in India and Indonesia. It was mantained manticores were hunted on elephants in India while the creatures were young and without stings. The beast entered European mythology by way of Ctesias, a Greek doctor working at the Persian court of King Artaxerxes II during the fourth century BC. Pausanias, in Description of Greece, said:

The beast described by Ctesias in his Indian history, which says is called martichoras by the Indians and "man-eater" by the Greeks, I am inclined to think is a lion.  

What did our friend Pliny the Elder think?

   

Pliny the Elder

Unlike Pausanias, Pliny the Elder swallowed the manticore myth hook, line and sinker. In other words, he swallowed it whole. Quoting Ctesias he wrote:

The mantichora has the face and ears of a human with grey eyes, a triple row of teeth that meet like the teeth in a comb, a lions body of a blood-red color, and a voice like a pan-pipe blended with a trumpet. It stings with its tail like a scorpion. It is very fast and has a special appetite for human flesh.

Like Fox Mulder of the X-Files, Pliny the Elder wanted to believe. 

Manticore - Museum Meermanns

In medieval Europe, the manticore symbolized tyranny, envy and the devil. It was evil personified. As late as the 1930's, peasants of Spain thought the creature signified bad omens. It was a beast that kept going, and going and going! 

So if you hear of manticores in your neighborhood, grab the closest elephant and dispatch them while they're young. They're not nice to have around.

Cockatrice

Cockatrice

Artist: Kent R. Caldwell

Recently, in my blog Barking at the Moon, I wrote an account mentioning my parent's woodshed dwelling rooster. After finishing the post, I wondered if any myths existed glorifying the chicken. A trip to Wikipedia revealed the scary looking creature seen above. Meet the rooster headed cockatrice, a people terrifying nightmare with a nasty talent for petrifacation and general death. The cockatrice's very birth was cause for concern, as its unlikely mother was an egg laying rooster. The unnatural rooster was a poor parent who abandoned its child in favor of the carefree, hen chasing, life it preferred. The rejected egg was incubated by a toad, or possibly snake, a confusing circumstance that must of disturbed the infant cockatrice. Then again, remembering it's basic evilness, maybe it didn't care. 

Cockatrice

Artist: Roel Jovellanos

Echoing it's strange birth, the cockatrice had the head of a rooster and the tail of a lizard. It's name comes from the Latin calcare "to tread" a name differentiating it from the similar basilisk, who was usually (but not always) portrayed legless. 

 

Basilisk

Artist: Crissy Gottberg

If you had the misfortune to stumble upon a cockatrice, what would happen? According to Pliny the Elder, an author and naturalist born 23 AD in Italy, the cockatrice was only 12 inches long, but packed a wallop. He wrote:

   Its touch and breath can scorch grass, kill bushes and burst rocks. Its poison is so deadly that once a man on a horse speared a cockatrice, the venom traveled up the spear and killed not only the man, but also the horse.

Pliny the Elder

    

This was a deadly creature capable of turning people to stone with a mere look, touch, or even breath. Could anything be done to dispose of such an awful monster? A mirrored shield was guaranteed to kill a cockatrice, as the aggressor's evil eye would reflect back and turn the beast to stone. Strangely, a rooster's crow would cause instant death. If no mirrored shields or roosters were available, there was one animal totally immune to the cockatrice's wrath. That animal was the weasel. I have no idea why the weasel was immune to the cockatrice's breath, glance and touch. It just was. 

Cockatrice and Weasel

15th century manuscript

Since Pliny the Elder said the cockatrice was only 12 inches long, this must be an unusually large cockatrice, or remarkably small weasel. 

Room of the Fire in the Bogo

Artist: Raphael

Pope Leo IV is on the balcony extinquishing flames with his blessing. He was a busy guy!

There WAS another way of destroying a cockatrice. The History of Serpents (1608) by Edward Topsell includes the following story about a cockatrice and a pope. One of the legendary creatures was found alive in a church vault during the mid 9th century leaving numerous people dead by its poisoned breath. Great chaos resulted until the creature was finally dispatched by the prayers of Pope Leo IV. As I said, he was a busy guy.

Run! This could be the cockatrice's rooster mom!