The Hedgehog, the Merchant, the King and the Poor Man (Hungarian: A sündisznó; English: "The Hedgehog") is a Hungarian fairy tale collected by László Merényi and translated by folklorist Jeremiah Curtin.László Merényi. Dunamelléki eredeti népmesék (2. kötet). Vol. II. Pest: Kjada Heckenast Gusztáv. 1864. pp. 5–48.
The first part of the tale refers to the international cycle of Animal as Bridegroom, wherein a human maiden marries a prince cursed to be an animal, and disenchants him. The second part of the tale belongs to the cycle of the Calumniated Wife and is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children". The latter type refers to stories where a girl promises a king she will bear a child or children with wonderful attributes, but her jealous relatives or the king's wives plot against the babies and their mother.
Summary A merchant loses his way in the forest. After five days trying and failing to find a way out, he utters out loud a promise to marry one of his three daughters to anyone that can help him out of the woods, as well as three sacks of coin as a wedding gift. Suddenly, a voice speaks from under him, near his feet, a small hedgehog that offers his help in return to the man upholding his promise. The hedgehog leads the merchant out of his predicament.
Next, a king also loses his way in the same woods, and, after five days, makes the same promise to marry one of his daughters to his possible saviour, and to give three sacks of coin as reward. The same hedgehog appears and guides the king out of the forest.
Thirdly, a poor man loses his way in the same forest, but prays to God to send him a liberator, and he promises to adopt them as his son. The same hedgehog appears and guides the poor man out of the woods. Some time later, the little animal knocks on the poor man's door one night and asks to be let in. The poor man, not knowing what to do, opens the door to the animal, wakes his wife and they prepare a bed for the hedgehog. The next morning, the family eats breakfast together, and the hedgehog asks his adoptive father to buy him a black rooster from an old woman and a ragged, torn saddle from a saddler, for the bird will be animal's mount.
The hedgehog rides on the rooster to the merchant's house to cash in on the man's promise and marry one of his daughters. The merchant welcomes the little animal and summons his daughters, and the hedgehog chooses the middle one, and gains three sacks of coins. They both ride to the poor man's hut, the hedgehog on the rooster and the girl in a carriage, crying all the way. The hedgehog asks her what is the matter, and she answers him she is marrying an animal. On hearing this, the hedgehog sends her back and keeps the money, which he gives to his adoptive father.
Next, he rides to the king's palace to court one of the princesses. The king calls his three daughters, explaining the situation to them, and the elder two refuse to marry the animal, save for the youngest, who agrees to keep her father's promise. On the way home, the princess rides in a carriage, asks the hedgehog why he is riding on the rooster, and invites him in, since he is her husband. Due to her kind words, the hedgehog changes himself to a golden-haired, golden-mouthed and golden-toothed prince, and the rooster into a golden-maned steed.
After the fortunate marriage, two of the merchant's daughters, save for the middle one, and the elder princess kill themselves by jumping into a well, in a hemp-pond, or in the river Tisza. The surviving girl promises to take revenge on the fortunate princess and her husband, and goes to the couple's new palace under the guise of an old woman. Most propitious, since the now human hedgehog was called to war against the Burkus king (Prussian king), leaving his pregnant wife alone. The merchant's second daughter helps in the delivery of the princess's children, twins (a boy and a girl), but puts them in a basket and abandons the royal babies in the forest, and deceives the princess that she gave birth to abominations the midwife had to put down in the river.
Back to the twins, a deer roaming the woods finds the basket and takes it to a river, then summons a Forest Maiden to look over them. After seven years, the Forest Maiden sends them to fetch water in jugs, but the twins accidentally break them and cry over the situation, fearing that their mother, the Forest Maiden, will punish them. A golden bird flying nearby says the Forest Maiden is not their mother, and promises to take them to their real parents.
When they reach adulthood, they are send on a quest for "the world-sounding tree", "the world-sweetly speaking bird" and "the silver lake [with] the golden fish".Curtin, Jeremiah. Myths and Folk-tales of the Russians, Western Slavs, and Magyars. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1890. pp. 517–545.
Analysis Tale type This tale is classified in the Hungarian Folktale Catalogue (Magyar népmesekatalógus, or MNK) as type 441 and type 707.Berze Nagy, János. Magyar népmesetípusok. Volume 2. Baranya Megye Tanácsának Kiadása, 1957. pp. 253, 691.Dömötör Ákos (szerk.). Magyar népmesekatalógus 2. Budapest, MTA Néprajzi Kutató Csoport, 1988. A magyar tündérmesék katalógusa (AaTh 300-749). pp. 221-222 (entry nr. 8).
ATU 441: Hans My Hedgehog The first part of the tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as ATU 441, "Hans My Hedgehog", a cycle of stories where the animal bridegroom is a porcupine, a pig or a hog. Other tales of this classification are Italian The Pig King, French Prince Marcassin and Romanian The Enchanted Pig (first part).
Polish philologist Mark Lidzbarski noted that the pig prince usually appears in Romance language tales, while the hedgehog as the animal husband occurs in Germanic and Slavic tales.Lidzbarski, Mark (Hg.). Geschichten und Lieder aus den neuaramäischen Handschriften. Weimar: Verlag von Emil Felber, 1896. p. 82. Also, according to Swedish folklorist and Christine Shojaei Kawan (in Enzyklopädie des Märchens), in type ATU 441 the animal husband may be a hedgehog, a wild boar or a porcupine. The Grimms' notes state that in these fairy tales, "Hedgehog, porcupine, and pig are here synonymous, like Porc and Porcaril".Grimm, Jacob und Wilhelm (1884). "Hans mein Igel /Hans the Hedgehog". Grimm's Household Tales: With the Author's Notes. Vol. 2. Translated by Margaret Hunt. G. Bell. p. 409. According to Hungarian scholar Ágnes Kovács, in ("Hungarian Ethnographic Dictionary"), in Hungary, the son is born due to the rash desire of their mother in the shape of an animal, appearing like a snake, a pig, a hound or a foal (in type 425), or the poor old couple adopts the first animal that appears in their way: a hedgehog (in type 441).
ATU 707: The Three Golden Children The second part of the tale (children born with special features) is tale type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children". Hungarian scholarship classify the ATU 707 tale under the banner of "The Golden-Haired Twins" (Hungarian: Az aranyhajú ikrek).Bódis, Zoltán. Storytelling: Performance, Presentations and Sacral Communication. In: Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics 7 (2). Estonian Literary Museum, Estonian National Museum, University of Tartu. 2013. p. 22. (online) Variants collected in Hungary and Hungarian-language territories show parallels with similar tales from nearby regions, like Grimm's The Three Little Birds.Róna-Sklarek, Elisabet. Ungarische Volksmärchen. Neue Folge. Leipzig: Dieterich. 1909. p. 288.
According to Hungarian-American scholar Linda Dégh, Hungarian variants may show two forms: the golden-haired sister rescues her golden-haired brothers and reveals the truth with the help of a truth-speaking bird, or the wonder children are helped by the Brother's fairy bride.Dégh, Linda. Folktales and Society: Story-telling in a Hungarian Peasant Community: Expanded Edition with a New Afterword. Indiana University Press, 1989. p. 336. .
Variants Distribution According to Swedish folklorist and narrative researcher Ines Köhler-Zülch, tale type ATU 441 is reported in Germany, Baltic Countries, Hungary and among West Slavic and South Slavic peoples (although Liungman mentioned the existence of variants in Sweden, Greece, and Italy).Liungman, Waldemar. Die Schwedischen Volksmärchen: Herkunft und Geschichte. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2022 . p. 103. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783112618004Köhler, Ines. "Hans mein Igel (AaTh 441)" [Hans My Hedgehog (ATU 441)]. In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Online. Edited by Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, Heidrun Alzheimer, Hermann Bausinger, Wolfgang Brückner, Daniel Drascek, Helge Gerndt, Ines Köhler-Zülch, Klaus Roth and Hans-Jörg Uther. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2016 . p. 496. https://www-degruyter-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/database/EMO/entry/emo.6.103/html. Accessed 2023-01-28. The Hungarian Folktale Catalogue (MNK) registers 8 variants in Hungary indexed as type AaTh 441, A sündisznó ("The Hedgehog"), three of them combined with other types.Dömötör Ákos (szerk.). Magyar népmesekatalógus 2. Budapest, MTA Néprajzi Kutató Csoport, 1988. A magyar tündérmesék katalógusa (AaTh 300-749). pp. 221-222.
Ethnographer commented that the tale type 707 is frequent and widespread in Hungarian-language areas.Sebestyén Ádám. Bukovinai székely népmesék III. Tolna Megyei Könyvtár. 1983. p. 319. In the same vein, professor Linda Dégh stated that the national Hungarian Catalogue of Folktales (MNK) listed 28 variants of the tale type and 7 deviations.Dégh, Linda (1996). Hungarian Folktales: The Art of Zsuzsanna Palkó. New York and London: Garland Publishing. p. 249. . Fieldwork conducted in 1999 by researcher Zoltán Vasvári amongst the Palóc population found 3 variants of tale type 707.VASVÁRI Zoltán. "Népmese a Palócföldön". In: Palócföld 1999/2, pp. 93–94.
Regional tales of type ATU 441 The Hedgehog In a Hungarian tale published by author Val Biro with the title The Hedgehog, a poor couple wish to have a son, but as the years pass by, they have no luck. One day, they decide to find any kind of animal in the forest they can adopt as their son. The man finds a hedgehog and brings it home to raise as their child. One day, the hedgehog begins to talk - much to the couple's surprise - and suggests they buy more pigs so he can become a swineherd and herd the pigs. They agree to it and let their hedgehog son herd the swine in the forest. Some time later, the Black King's retinue lose their way in the forest, and the hedgehog promises to help them, in exchange for the hand of the Black King's daughter. They sign a contract to mark their deal. The next day, the Red King's retinue also lose their way, and the little animal makes the same deal with him. On the third day, the White King also loses his way in the forest, and the hedgehog makes a third deal. Later, the hedgehog tells his parents he will go seek his bride, a princess. He goes first to the Black King's court and demands the princess as wife, and a dowry. When they are riding the coach, the hedgehog asks the princess if she loves the little animal, to which she gives a rude answer. Offended, he makes a return to the Black King's court and leaves the princess there, but takes the dowry for himself. The same events happen to the Red King's daughter, who says she does not love him. Finally, with the White King's daughter, she tells him she loves him, and he turns into a handsome prince. The prince explains he was under a spell, and marries the White King's daughter.
The Hedgehog (Alsó-Fehér)