- Genre
- Etiological legend
- Source status
- folkloric
- Motifs
- soft fur, spruce, pride, origin of spines
The story
At first the hedgehog had very soft fur and was proud of it. One day, passing a spruce, it pricked its snout on the needles.
It angrily complained to God, then turned on the tree itself. If the spruce had a soft coat like its own, the hedgehog said, it would hold its branches high. Instead it dangled its ugly needles where they could prick anyone passing.
God was angered by the hedgehog’s conceit. From now on, he said, its own hairs would be sharper than the spruce needles.
The soft coat became spines. The story adds that the hedgehog still grunts and complains about its prickly covering.
Reading the story
The plot exchanges the hedgehog’s position with the tree’s: the quality it mocks becomes its own. Here spines arise from pride, rather than being granted as protection.
The 1967 notes cite Mūsų tautosaka IX (1935), no. 206. This is one traditional explanation of the hedgehog’s spines.
Source and retelling
Lietuvių tautosaka, IV (1967), Nr. 357, p. 436: „Ežio spygliai“; PDF p. 435. An original retelling of the recorded traditional narrative cited here. The sequence of events and ending are retained in modern language.