# Hans My Hedgehog _Brothers Grimm_ · 7 min read · ages 6-10 Born half hedgehog and half boy, Hans My Hedgehog rides off on a rooster and makes two lost kings promise him whatever meets them first at home. After his wedding, Hans takes off his hedgehog skin, and once it has burned he is a handsome young man who receives the kingdom and later takes his overjoyed father there. --- Once there was a rich farmer who had no children. The other farmers teased him about it, until one day he came home angry and said, “I will have a child, even if it’s a hedgehog!” Soon his wife had a baby who was a hedgehog from the waist up and a boy from the waist down. She was frightened and said, “Look, you have brought bad luck on us.” “He must be christened all the same,” said the farmer, “though nobody will want to be his godfather.” “And we can’t call him anything but Hans My Hedgehog,” said his wife. His spikes kept him out of an ordinary bed, so they laid him on straw behind the stove, and his mother could not nurse him. He lay there for eight years, and his father grew so tired of him that he thought, “If only he would die!” But Hans did not die. One day the farmer was going to the fair and asked what he should bring home. “Dear father,” said Hans, “please bring me some bagpipes.” As soon as Hans had them, he said, “Dear father, have the rooster shod at the blacksmith’s. Then I’ll ride away and never come back.” His father was glad to be rid of him and did it. Hans rode off to the forest on the rooster, taking pigs and donkeys with him. There the rooster flew him up into a tall tree, and he sat there for many years, watching his herd grow. All the while he played his bagpipes, and the music was very beautiful. One day a lost king heard the music and sent his servant to find it. High in the tree the servant saw only a rooster with a hedgehog on its back, playing. Hans My Hedgehog came down and said he would show the way, if the king would promise him in writing whatever met him first in his courtyard at home. The king thought, “Easy enough. He won’t understand a thing, and I can write whatever I like.” So he wrote something down, and Hans led him safely home. The king’s daughter ran out joyfully to kiss him. Then he told her about the strange animal on the rooster and his promise, but said he had written that it should not have what met him first. The princess was glad. She said he had done well, because she would never have gone away with the Hedgehog. Then another king came by, lost in the great forest. He heard the music and sent his runner to see what it was. The runner called up, “What are you doing in that tree?” “I’m keeping my donkeys and pigs,” Hans called down. “But what do you want?” The runner said the king was lost and asked him to show them the road. So Hans came down and told the old king he would show him the way, if the king would give him whatever met him first in front of his palace. The king said yes and signed, and Hans rode ahead and led him home. The king’s only daughter, who was very beautiful, ran out and threw her arms around his neck. Sadly he told her about the creature, half hedgehog and half man, who had shown him the way, and that she now belonged to it. But for love of her father, she promised she would gladly go with Hans whenever he came. In time the pigs filled the whole forest, and Hans My Hedgehog decided to live there no longer. He sent word to his father to empty every pigsty in the village, for he was bringing a herd big enough for everyone. The old farmer was troubled, for he had believed Hans long dead. But Hans drove the pigs into the village and had them butchered, with such a din that it could be heard two miles away. Then he said, “Father, have the rooster shod once more. Then I’ll ride away and never come back as long as I live.” His father did it gladly. Hans My Hedgehog rode to the first kingdom, where the king had ordered that anyone riding a rooster with bagpipes was to be attacked with every weapon. The guards rushed at Hans with their pikes, but he spurred his rooster, and it flew over the gate to the king’s window. “Give me what you promised,” Hans called, “or I will take your life and your daughter’s too!” So the king begged his daughter to go with Hans and save them both. She dressed in white and set off with Hans in a carriage with six horses, and the king thought he would never see her again. But a little way out of town, Hans took away her fine white dress and pricked her with his spines until she was hurt all over. “That is the reward for your falseness,” he said. “Go home, I don’t want you!” He chased her back, and she lived in disgrace ever after. Then Hans rode on to the second king, whose guards had orders to present arms to anyone like him, cheer him and bring him to the palace. The princess was frightened when she saw him, for he looked so strange. But she had given her father her word, so she welcomed Hans, and they were married. At bedtime she was afraid of his quills. He told her not to be afraid, because no harm would come to her. Then he asked the old king to post four men at the bedroom door with a big fire. He would crawl out of his hedgehog skin and leave it by the bed, he said, and the men must throw it into the fire and stay until it had burned away. When the clock struck eleven, he went in and took off the hedgehog skin. The men threw it into the fire, and once it had burned away, he was free. He lay in bed as a man, but black as coal, as if he had been burned. The king’s doctor rubbed him with fine ointments until the black was gone and he was a handsome young man. The princess was overjoyed. The next morning the wedding was celebrated properly, and Hans My Hedgehog received the kingdom from the old king. Years later Hans traveled with his wife to his father and said he was his son. But the old farmer said he had only ever had one son, born a hedgehog with spikes, who had gone off into the world. Then Hans told him who he was, and the old man was overjoyed and went with him to his kingdom. My tale is done, and away it has run to little August’s house. --- - Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/hans-my-hedgehog - Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q472668 - Tale type: ATU 441 (per Wikidata) - Source: Household Tales by Brothers Grimm, trans. Margaret Hunt (Project Gutenberg #5314) (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5314) - Public-domain basis: Talerie contemporary retelling (CC0 2026), based on: Household Tales by Brothers Grimm, trans. Margaret Hunt (Project Gutenberg #5314) — translation: author died 1859/1863 (+70 passed); translator Margaret Hunt died 1912 (+70 passed) - License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)