Mrs Tiggywinkle on stage
© Richard Mildenhall: Arena Images, TopFoto.co.uk

The hedgehog is a familiar, though slightly mysterious and nocturnal creature to us all. It is no wonder that evidence of this strange affection shows up all the time in our literature and popular culture.

So why “hedgehog”? Well, it frequents hedges of course, but its honorary status as a hog (it was once commonly known as the “hedgepig”, which is how the witches refer to it in Macbeth) derives not from its appearance, but from the range of snorting and grunting noises it makes. In addition to these, if frightened, it can emit a cry that sounds not unlike a smaller-scale version of a porcine squeal (or “whine,” as Shakespeare’s witches have it). Another folk name for it in times gone by was the “urchin”, a word that commonly denotes prickliness (think of the sea-urchin), and is derived distantly from the Latin name for the hedgehog, hericius.

Like most of our wild animals, the hedgehog has found its way into our national myths and stories. In literature, it has the starring role in Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Mrs Tiggywinkle (1905), first seen doing the ironing, but otherwise instantly recognisable: “Her print gown was tucked up, and she was wearing a large apron over her striped petticoat. Her little black nose went sniffle, sniffle, snuffle, and her eyes went twinkle, twinkle; and underneath her cap … that little person had PRICKLES!”

Not one to be seen dead doing the ironing, the Sega Corporation’s Sonic the Hedgehog is a teenage comic-book and animation superhero who has saved the world from the forces of evil on many an occasion, and will no doubt go on doing so.