H is for Hans the Hedgehog (Fairy Tale Spotlight A-Z)

WARNING: This fairy tale has been candy-coated maintaining Scarlet Embers as a family friendly blogdom.

 

Hans the Hedgehog, in it’s original form, is a monstrous little fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm. The more I read the Brothers Grimm, the more obvious it becomes to me, they should have been confined to padded rooms. As I mentioned above, I have candy coated my version, just for you.

Once upon a time in a land far, far away lived a miserable couple desperate to have a baby. So desperate that the man cried out to God.

“Any baby will suffice! Even one with quills!”

So guess what? Yep. The man’s prayer was answered with a quilly newborn. Hans. Because you can’t cuddle a prickly baby they stuffed little Hans behind the stove on a bed of hay. There he lay for eight long years.

Hans, from behind the stove, requested a bagpipe for his 8th birthday. Daddy obliged. Upon receiving the bagpipes Hans saddled up a chicken (mmm, hmmmm, a chicken) and rode off into the  dark woods where he sat in the trees and became a master musician.

One day (bum bum bum) a lost king (go figure) was drawn to Hans’ expert bagpipery. Hans struck a deal with the king offering to help him find his way back to his kingdom in exchange for the princess. What a deal!

Upon seeing her prickly fiance, the princess was horrified . She thought for sure she would be quilled to death on her wedding night. But of course, being the obedient daughter that she was, Buttercup sucked it up and went on with the ceremony. When night swept across the kingdom, Hans stepped out of his quills, threw them in the fireplace, and much to his new wife’s delight, was quite handsome. Thus proving; “you can’t judge a hedgehog by his cover.”