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Tale Summary

There was once a successful farmer who had everything he wanted in life except for a child. He told people he wanted one so badly, he wouldn’t even care if it were a hedgehog! His wife finally gave birth to a boy, but from the waist up he looked like a hedgehog. They decided to keep him and name him Jack my Hedgehog, but his father grew to resent him and wish that he were dead. When he was eight years old, Jack asked his father to bring him a bagpipe from the market and to have his rooster shod, and then he would leave him forever. His father is delighted for him to go away, so he does these things. Jack goes off riding the rooster and playing the bagpipe, with donkeys and pigs following him. He goes to the forest, where he makes the rooster fly to the top of a tall tree, and looks after his herd for several years as it grows in size. One day, a king who lost his way heard the bagpipe music and came to Jack for directions. Jack agreed to show him the way back to the kingdom if he puts it in writing that he will give him whatever he first meets upon arriving home. The king agreed, only because he intended to trick the hedgehog boy, and wrote and signed a piece of paper saying he promised to give nothing at all to him. When the king arrived back home, his daughter was the first thing he met, and he told her of the strange creature and of his cunning. Sometime later, another king became lost in the wood and asked Jack for directions. This king wrote a promise on a note, that Jack may have the first thing the king met when he got home. The king’s daughter, who was very beautiful, ran out to greet her father when he returned, and so she is the first thing he met. He was sorrowful that he had to give her to Jack my Hedgehog, but she reassured him that she would do it willingly out of her love for her father. Meanwhile, Jack had amassed a huge herd of pigs and alerted his father that he would drive them back into the village so that the townspeople could kill all that they wanted. His father was vexed because he thought his son was dead but was happy to hear that he would leave again as soon as the blacksmith would shoe his rooster. Jack then sets out for the first kingdom, where everyone had been instructed by the king to chase him away. He flies his rooster to the king’s window and demands his daughter under penalty of death. When she is given to him and they have ridden a way together, he ripped off her beautiful clothes and pricked her all over with his bristles. He does this because of her treachery and sent her back to the castle in shame. Then, he set off for the second kingdom, where everyone had been instructed to cheer and welcome him. He married the princess, who was nervous to kiss him that night because of his bristles, but he told her she had nothing to fear. Jack begged the king to put a guard of four men outside his door, and to have them make a big fire; when he went to bed he would take off his hedgehog skin and the men would need to snatch it up and burn it. They did this, and the enchantment was broken. The king bestowed his kingdom to handsome young Jack, who also visited his father and made amends.��

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