aid: 'Let it be embroidered with gold
and silver; it shall be your wedding mantle.'

Grimm.

_JACK MY HEDGEHOG_

There was once a farmer who lived in great comfort. He had both lands
and money, but, though he was so well off, one thing was wanting to
complete his happiness; he had no children. Many and many a time, when
he met other farmers at the nearest market town, they would teaze him,
asking how it came about that he was childless. At length he grew so
angry that he exclaimed: 'I must and will have a child of some sort or
kind, even should it only be a hedgehog!'

Not long after this his wife gave birth to a child, but though the lower
half of the little creature was a fine boy, from the waist upwards it
was a hedgehog, so that when his mother first saw him she was quite
frightened, and said to her husband, 'There now, you have cursed the
child yourself.' The farmer said, 'What's the use of making a fuss? I
suppose the creature must be christened, but I don't see how we are to
ask anyone to be sponsor to him, and what are we to call him?'

'There is nothing we can possibly call him but Jack my Hedgehog,'
replied the wife.

So they took him to be christened, and the parson said: You'll never be
able to put that child in a decent bed on account of his prickles.'
Which was true, but they shook down some straw for him behind the stove,
and there he lay for eight years. His father grew very tired of him and
often wished him dead, but he did not die, but lay on there year after
year.

Now one day there was a big fair at the market town to which the farmer
meant to go, so he asked his wife what he should bring her from it.
'Some meat and a couple of big loaves for the house,' said she. Then he
asked the maid what she wanted, and she said a pair of slippers and some
stockings. Lastly he said, 'Well, Jack my Hedgehog, and what shall I
bring you?'

'Daddy,' said he, 'do bring me a bagpipe.' When the farmer came home he
gave his wife and the maid the things they had asked for, and then he
went behind the stove and gave Jack my Hedgehog the bagpipes.

When Jack had got his bagpipes he said, 'Daddy, do go to the smithy and
have the house cock shod for me; then I'll ride off and trouble you no
more.' His father, who was delighted at the prospect of getting rid of
him, had the cock shod, and when it was ready Jack my Hedgehog mounted
on its back and rode off to the forest, followed by all the pigs and
asse