The Gaelic for hedgehog is Grainneog, or 'Horrible One'. Hedgehogs are not horrible at all, of course - they are, in point of fact, lovely - but they are certainly mysterious animals, little studied and widely mis- understood. Here is a selection of the not-very-much known about them.

Humans (and not only those who live in caravans) have always eaten the 'hedge-pig' or furze pig. It is a free source of white meat thats relatively easy to catch. One account, published in 1699, recounts how the moors of West Barbary went about it: "The hedgehog is a princely dish among them, and before they kill him they rub his back against the ground by holding its feet betwixt two, as men do a saw that saws stone, till it has done squeaking; then they cut its throat, and with a knife cut of all its spines and singe it. They take out its guts, stuff the body with some rice, sweet herbs, garavancas, spice, and onions; they put some butter and garavancas into the water they stew it in, and let it stew in a little pot, close stopped, till it is enough, and it proves an excellent dish."

The greatest hedgehog

mystery of all

must surely be - what on earth

are they doing on Christmas

cards?

They are rarely seen in December and have no known connection

with the Christian

nativity story, or

with any other

midwinter festival

tradition. Presumably, they're there simply

because they're lovely.

And not horrible.

... due to the baffling belief that they stole milk from cows. Boys were encouraged to present severed hedgehog-heads to church wardens for a bounty of fourpence each; the rest of the animal could be eaten. One historian has estimated that from 1560 to 1800, 14,000 hogs a year died this way. Horrible! (Mind you, 15,000 are killed on the roads each year).

Everyone knows that hedgehogs hibernate in winter, but they dont actually need to.

If there's food available,

they'll stay active.

New Zealand hedgehogs

dont hibernate at all

and in Britain hibernation

is becoming shorter

(and rarer) because

of mild winters.

African desert

hedgehogs avoid

the killing heat

by aestivating -

that is, hibernating

during the summer.

Between 1566 and 1853, hedgehogs were legally classed as vermin...

If a hedgehog is attacked, the first

thing it'll do is frown. Its frowning

muscle - the panniculus carno-

sus - runs all the way from its

forehead to its tailbone. This

contracts in 0,01 of a

second, pulling its whole

body in an almost

impregnable ball. Rolling

up completely is something

hedgehogs dont often do.

More usually, they just tuck

their heads in and hunch their

prickles over to protect their faces.

At the Rocky Mountain Hedgehog Show in Denver,

Colorado, quiet, calm hedgehogs tend to win the prizes.

Sadly, the quieter the hog, the more likely it is to suffer

from Wobbly Hedgehog Syndrome, which is similar to

Multiple Sclerosis in humans.

By selecting hogs that behave

well for the show judges,

pet owners have unwittingly

created a population

unique prone to

this fatal and

inherited

condition.

African Pygmy hedgehogs are the only kind known in the USA, and then only as pets. At the international hedgehog Olympic Games, spectators practice "silent cheering" - waving their hands in the air by way of applause - so as not to startle the competitors.

...instead of rolling up. Hedgehog expert Pat Morris has shown that it is quite pointless a running hog is mathematically more likely than a stationary one to come under a vehicle's wheels.

Another myth is that hedgehogs are evolving to run away from cars...

A persistent myth about hedgehogs is that if you remove their fleas, they'll die. In truth, they'll probably won't notice - they're indifferent to even the heaviest infestations.

Since hedgehog fleas cannot live on humans, cats, dogs or any other species, there seems no reason to inconvenience either the hedgehogs or the fleas.

Igel-Cartoons, Games und Videos (Intro)

Hedgehogs need open spaces to feed in. The Golden Age of the hedgehog in Britain began with the coming of the Romans - who first used hedges to divide fields - and lasted till after the Second World War, when intensive farming ripped hedges out to increase field sizes.