Free Patreon episode - And Then Sparrows Took Their Eyes: Hans The Hedgehog

Hello, everyone.

Hello.

You're hearing Benjamin at home in Cardiff and Henry in the coffee area of a French supermarket, is that right?

That's right.

I'm in a Leclerc.

I won't specify which one, but it's in

central Brittany.

It's a sort of mega, it's a sort of mega temple to ham and

cheese mainly.

Yeah.

It's a mega French supermarket with an excellent little coffee area that I like to sit in enjoying enjoying my French coffee, which has that wonderful beige scum on it, which you can see in the camera.

There's a certain kind of beige scum.

Yeah, I'm sorry to our listeners to you answering this one video, but I can vouch that Hanu was pointing at some lovely beige scum.

It's a really rich beige scum, isn't it?

Anyway,

I'm glad to be talking to you.

What are we here to talk about?

Well,

we're going to put one of our Patreon-only episodes on the normal feed to give normal un-Patreon people a little taste of the kind of thing we do on Patreon.

That's a lovely idea.

Yeah, so it's a little soup cent.

A little trailer for the kinds of stuff we get out to.

Well, it's not a trailer, it's a full whack.

It's a full whack.

It's coming to you in a sort of trailer, free trailer format, so it'd be like going to the cinema

and getting to see...

Well, it'd be like going to the cinema to see Superman and then playing

the world in full.

Yeah.

That's what's happening so it's sort of quite inconvenient in a way so the one we're with the one we're going to put up for free

is and then sparrows took their eyes ah yes well this is our new format where we we discuss we go we we take a sort of

a folkloric tale and sort of read it out and analyse it sort of live yeah it was good fun wasn't it we did a Grimm's fairy tale called

it was someone the hedgehog who was it again Hans the Hedgehog it was Hans the Hedgehog.

It's a sort of deeper Grimm's cut.

It doesn't make a lot of the Grimm's top tens or the Grimm's Disney adaptations, does it?

But it's a good one.

Not yet.

No.

So,

yeah.

So I just thought we could record a little introduction, but I'm not really sure what we need to say.

Just that.

This is a little taste of the kind of thing we put on Patreon.

If you enjoy it, you can sign up at patreon.com forward slash threebeen salad.

And if you don't, you can very much remain a

non-patron

listener.

and

we'd be very delighted for that for that to happen too.

Would we be delighted by that?

Delighted is overstating it.

I think whenever anyone says the word delighted they're overstating it.

Yes.

I think it's got a lot of red flags as a word delighted.

So

I guess we'll let our listeners listen to this fine Patreon episode now.

What are your plans?

I mean you're on holiday.

I'm not on holiday so I'm just doing normal stuff.

What are your plans for the rest of the day?

So I'm going to have some lunch and then

I'm going to explore some Breton dolmens,

which is a form of sort of Neolithic rock formation.

Rock accumulation.

Well, not accumulation.

Structure.

What, man-made?

Yeah, so

I think men here are the ones that go up and dolmens go across.

So

there's a famous sort of Neolithic tunnel

that is not far from here that I'm going to be exploring this afternoon.

And I think you can actually crouch down and sort of enter the tunnel and imagine what it would have been like.

The tunnel will be a kind of portal back into our Neolithic past, right?

I'm assuming that.

I'm assuming either that or back to the supermarket cafe, ideally.

There's actually basically nowhere else I'd rather be.

Yeah.

Lovely.

Well, enjoy yourself.

Thanks very much.

And I'll see you soon.

Yeah, see you soon.

And enjoy this Patreon episode.

It's called And Then Sparrows Took Their Eyes.

hello everyone and welcome to a new thing we don't have a name for yet but I'm gonna suggest a name oh yeah great okay

so just to explain this is a kind of format where we read each other a fairy tale or legend or or sort of mythic

some sort of mythic tale yeah from the caverns of the past yes sort of thing and I was thinking we could call it and then sparrows took his eyes

I like that a lot yeah but if you have a if you have a better idea we can pomper do this no because I mean that's how they all end isn't it they all do

um

it's the kind of with often it's modern editions take it out and replace it with, and then they lived happily ever after.

Yes.

But normally in

a larry academic uh somewhere like sort of northumberland or aberestworth will will will reintroduce it yeah in a new translation which should originate which which should be and then they lived happily ever after comma until a sparrow took their eyes yeah

yeah sometimes an enchanted sparrow sometimes just a normal sparrow yeah i fully support that larry academic that scholar yeah yeah yeah it is true though we we because we live in a disneified

all we've had disneyfied versions of all the the fairy tales, and whenever you go back and look at them,

there's always a sort of eye-plucking moment that's been taken.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, Cinderella, the last scene of Cinderella is just, there's just eyes everywhere.

It's just an absolute eye.

Just a barrage of eyes, people plucking out their own eyes, trucking them around, putting the wrong eyes in their own heads and seeing things from the other person's point of view.

It gets really confusing.

But the whole, and the whole, the whole floor of the palace is described as, it was like a soup of eyes.

And often that gets cut out of.

and people were sort of you know if you cover a cover a floor with loads of marbles and then someone tries to walk on it and they go whoa yeah that yeah that was happening but with eyes that was happening but with eyes that's that was absolutely hilarious back in the day it was a great great gag in your in your dark forests era of time oh yeah but that's because the dizzy fight they they the fool they just they just wanted to use these things as entertainments they're not entertainments they're instructional they're warnings they're warnings they're warnings propaganda they're public public information and safety yeah but also they're your heritage.

They're your heritage.

They're ancient warnings.

From people that, you know, from your grandfather's grandfathers and their grandmother's grandmothers.

Obviously, still skipping a generation

each time, isn't it?

It's not your grandmother's mother.

It's your grandmother's grandmother's mother.

She don't listen to her.

And also the life expectancy for in-between generations was appalling back.

Yeah, they'd barely, you know, if they'd managed to breed it, then they'd carved it, basically.

Well, almost all of them would have had their sparrows

taken by eyes.

That's very rare that happens in some of the more

sort of zaney um

trippier very does yeah but um

yeah and of course of course the um in the original snow white the dwarfs of course are eye miners aren't they so it's the caverns that they would that they would be sticking their little axes into with the with the eye sockets the faces of the proletariats were the faces of the proletariat and that's why the word face has come to mean both what it originally was, which is a rocky outcrop that would be

pummeled away out by

masons.

And then the thing on the front of your face which would be pummeled away out by

dwarfs.

It's as simple as that.

And they give Snow White an eye necklace, don't they?

An eyeball necklace.

Held together by human tendon, isn't it?

The eye tendon.

So yeah.

So it's eyes and foot tendons they would take.

Mike, you can tell tell us this.

This is a bit of a off-topic thing.

But you know in TV or something,

someone's eyes will come out and they'll kind of be on stalks.

Yeah.

And it's because...

But Ben, this is animation.

This is Mike.

That's not acting.

That doesn't happen in acting.

That's animation, man.

But Mike is a history in medicine.

I'm bringing together art and

anatomy.

So Henry, for example, might draw.

Are you happy now?

Yeah.

Well, tread carefully.

Okay.

There might be, for example, a banjer that sees a fox with boobs drawn by Henry.

Yeah.

Wearing a pikazo.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nice attitude.

And the eyes come out, wahooga, wahooga, right?

Yeah.

And the eyes come out and they're sort of attached on stalks.

Yep.

Steam coming out of the ears, yeah.

Yeah.

And those are the nerve, right?

Yep.

What's that called?

The optic nerve, yeah.

The optic nerve, yeah.

Yep.

I've always wondered if you did pull your own eyes out in the kind of eada pussy fairy tally kind of way,

would they dangle off?

Yes.

Because there's a bit and there's a bit of spare in there just for you to do that.

There's always a bit of slack.

There is a bit of slack.

It's very a bit of spooling.

You know, those sort of things you reel up a garden hose with.

It's a bit like one of those.

Yeah.

Well, if you train your face muscles enough, certainly.

You can wahooga, can't you?

Yeah, you can wahooga them.

If you see a beaver with...

What was it?

A beaver with boobs?

I can't remember what the...

A Fox with Boobs is what I was watching.

You know what I mean?

That's inspired by when I went to Germany in Dusseldorf last month, there was a pub I went to that was quite a good pub.

But as I looked around, I realized that

the mascot for the pub, which they'd covered almost every surface with, was a fox with boobs, with human boobs.

It's one of those ones where

when you make that kind of decision as an illustrator, you have to think about the logical consequences because then it plays out.

So does that mean

they have to wear bras?

They have to wear bras, but do they wear pantyhose?

Right.

You know what I mean?

Like, how far does it stretch?

Underwear underwear coord are we we talking?

Yeah, exactly.

How do the combos work?

But it wasn't just boobs, it was like she was a kind of frulein.

So she was kind of wearing like Leid de Hosen-esque business.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, mids or

something.

And

was she wearing a bikini top or a?

No, it was more like a very busty kind of leather.

Yeah, sort of leathery maids outfit.

Leather and cotton or whatever the material is, that sort of combination of

I find it a bit uneasy that sort of anthropomorphism, sex, sexual anthropomorphization.

It was horrible as an illustrator, I won't do oh, that's good because this was that whoever did all the illustrations in that pub and there were lots should be in prison.

I think I think sexy fox, fine, sexy human, fine, but not some sort of sexy um sexy, the sexy is pushing.

I mean, there's making things beautiful.

I mean, I think I've spoken about it before: the um, the Collie who played the queen and dog Tanya and the Musker Hounds.

She was very, very beautiful.

She was one of my earliest crushes.

Okay, let me find this.

Collie in, what was it?

Dog Tanya and the Musker Hounds, the three Musker Hounds.

Oh, that was really good.

She was just very elegant and

I was strongly attracted to her as a very small boy.

Mike, for a long time in my life, I thought that that was the original, that the original story was...

Dog Tanya and the Musker Hounds.

Yeah, yeah.

And then I discovered this thing, The Three Musketeers.

And for quite a long time, I was like, oh, so it's kind of

the Dog Tanya

But they've humanized, yeah,

yeah, I guess that could work.

They've humanized the, yeah, yeah, it could be, yeah, why not?

You just decay nine them and put them in.

Okay, okay.

I'm, yeah, I'm looking at some pictures now.

Mike, has she got blonde hair?

I remember her as blonde, yeah, yeah, yeah.

She's uh, yeah,

but I just, yes, I was

aware that there was something, I mean, I was confused by it at the time.

I'm what I found her really attractive.

Oh, was she

Is that the lassie type of Collie?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, they are.

Be careful.

This podcast is not.

This is not what we intended it to be, but it's basically become a kind of witch if you had to.

This was never

the plan.

No, it's not, it's not about that.

But they are lovely.

But she was also, she held herself very well, and she was, she was elegant.

She was calm

in the face of crisis, whereas her husband, the king, was a hopeless

sort of tosser.

So I mean, there was a bit of literal underdog, even though she's a queen.

You know what you're doing, Mike?

You're describing her the way Tori MP describes a beautiful woman, which is she was very elegant, very calm, and had.

He didn't use the words

but great poise.

Poise.

Yeah.

And she had a lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely.

If you look at the, you look at the picture now,

absolutely lovely, full V-shaped beard.

And that's attractive across species, across across genders and across time as well across time

the full and v-shaped beard it's the only beauty standard that stands up at any point in history going back to prehistory any cultural milieu yeah if you want

i all i can get is pictures of real um

sexy collies

i'm not getting animated sexy collies

um

but they are they are lovely lovely things aren't they

that kind of collie is that because that's different from the black and white farm collie a border collie right yeah so what kind of collie is that mike isn't it's sheep dog i mean i couldn't tell you

i think it's a sexy collie

it's a sexy colleague

um and if you break breed a sexy collie with a

with a pig

if you breed a sexy

if you breed a sexy collie with a pig with a macho pig are we talking or with a no if you breed a sexy collie with a macho pig once in a generation if you you you'll get miss

But you get a lot of absolutely monstrous canine pigs and porcine dogs.

And they have to go straight to the basement.

They can never see the light.

It is a numbers game.

It's not one and done.

No.

And you'll have to feed them.

All they'll eat is the

pre-macerated innards of uncooked supermarket Frankwurters.

So you'll have to get used to.

Which is also what they will become eventually.

Eventually, they'll become

from an illustrator's point of view, Henry.

There's a lovely, I always think there's a lovely bit in one of the more modern Muppets films,

and there's a song where they imagine she imagines her, she's getting married to Kermit, and she's imagining her future, and she imagines them having kids, which is a great sort of question for you.

Yeah, again, it's one of those, yeah, and they just do tiny little pink frogs and tiny little green pigs.

Okay, so that's a nice,

but, but, of course.

So, when did this come out, this film?

Probably 10 years ago.

So, of course, so but there'll be lots of children that went home and tried to make that happen with their

pets and on farms.

And

those monstrosities will now be 10 years old, weren't they?

The actual ones that were bred.

Yeah.

And

they'd have learnt quite a bit.

They'd have learned how to survive.

They'd learned how to survive.

I mean, a fully aquatic pig is one of the Ministry of Defence's top five, isn't it?

Top five priorities.

And that's

bipartisan, isn't it?

That's not

one of the few long-term plans that we've actually been able to focus on in this country.

It's that and the Eurofighter, isn't it?

Well, the aquatic pig could be the first mobile army that can also be a food.

Yeah, exactly.

So you don't have to supply supplying an army.

Banjacks, Napoleon.

Think of your convoy ships.

Think

in a time of war, so easy to pick off, so easy to spot from the air, from the sea.

Yeah.

But if you've got a herd of aquatic pigs, you know, moving across, you know, it's a bit like a sort of a big sort of sponsored triathlon or something.

I mean, it's just

the waves are roiling with pigs.

Pigs are going to get through.

Yeah.

Aren't they?

Yeah.

And also, they're incredibly intelligent.

I mean, they're about 10% as intelligent as a monkey.

So it's actually one of of the smaller monkeys

um yeah

one of your hand one of your hand monkeys you know it's slightly sub-average macaque yeah yeah yeah um

or or or any of the monsai gibbons

so um

okay so henry what folkloric tale are you going to tell us today?

Well, my one, I think, is actually quite appozite

because

we were talking

a minute ago about,

well, you were talking about the

anthropomorphization of a fox on a German logo.

My tale also involves

a sort of semi-anthropomorphoid creature that's half human, half animal, which, of course, that is a staple of myths.

Yeah.

Isn't it around the world?

It's half human, half animals, and triangular birds being sexy.

But it's always human boobs, isn't it?

Always human boobs.

It's never udders on a human.

No people.

Or it's never, oh, she was a beautiful maiden with lovely, lovely squirrel tits.

Eight of them in a row.

That doesn't happen.

Straightest underliner.

But

so my one is,

so I've been reading the Grimms fairy tales.

Yeah.

And I've been reading them for quite a while.

I really like to read them in bed.

It helps me go to sleep.

I think, I guess it reverts me to some sort of child state.

Well, it was you telling me stuff, though.

It was you telling me this that gave us me the idea for this thing.

So you've been reading them a lot recently.

I mean, because I've never really got properly into them, and there are hundreds of them.

And I've been reading it for ages.

I'm only halfway through.

But I find them very soothing.

They get me off to sleep.

And if I wake up in the middle of the night, I read them, they get me back off to sleep really well.

There's something about

the kind of odd logic that they have, where one thing sort of follows another, but but but doesn't really

but two things ago doesn't follow at all do you know what i mean like like things just sort of the the dominoes go down there are very few of them that would have got through your average kind of like what's it called they've not been writers roomed have they saved the cat or whatever they've not yeah they wouldn't get that's a script doctoring would absolutely try like the way of doing a yeah a Marvel action movie or whatever it is.

Yeah, no way.

Because quite often by the end of the tale, you're nowhere near...

it's got nothing to do with where you started

at all.

And you go back, and actually, what's quite odd about them is if you come back to one halfway through,

you know, the way you do

when you read a book, if you come back to it, you go back a bit to remind yourself, you go back and say, what the hell is going on?

And

you basically have to reread it from the beginning every time.

You can't pick up the thread.

Because you'll be reading the thread and it's about like a bishop who's running up a hill.

And then

two pages ago, it's about a squirrel who's falling down a well.

And then three pages before that, it's about like a guy going off to seek his fortune.

But because people are changing identities.

And read those and think, oh, I can't wait to see how these things dovetail together at the end.

They'd think that at your peril.

Absolutely.

It's a path to madness.

It's not good.

Because the birds that peck out people's eyes at the end haven't been there at the beginning.

They've moved on to the next variant.

They're picking it out in the next barren.

Do you know anything about the Brothers Grimm?

Because I don't know, do you?

Not very much.

All I know is that

they were

interested in just collecting German folk.

Didn't they physically walk about the place and

interview people?

They talked to lots and lots of people.

So they would talk to...

They just wrote down stuff that hadn't been written down, basically, before.

And they talked to the storyteller person of the area or of the village or whatever.

And a lot of the tales are credited if you look into the little bibliography.

They're not a lot of single royalty.

Did they credit them?

Did they put down the...

Well, I think in the bibliographies, or certainly if you Google them, actually, I don't know if it's in the book,

you can find information that this tale was.

And that's what they used to say, wasn't it, back in the 1800s?

They'd be like, just Google it, guys.

Just Google it, and you'll find out.

Just Google it.

It's our work, really.

Yeah.

We did all the work.

Yeah, just

quickly.

Steve.

Yes, Brian.

Steve and Brian.

Steve and Brian Grum.

Yes.

They want royalties.

What do we do?

Say made a couple of words.

We will.

Google, yes.

Google.

Bye.

And then eventually, there was so much pressure that

Google started from that, did it?

They invented the internet, the brothers.

They invented the internet.

Yeah.

But also, the tales are kind of categorized by, this is a type 449.

This is a type 4b32.

Oh, really?

Someone's done some sort of like, yeah, genealogy of how they all sort of like influence each other.

But influence, there are other people.

There are types of tale that clump together.

There are tales where people's hands turn into fish or whatever.

But this might be a turtle box, but I think I think it was something to do with because I guess it was pre-Germany existing but there was lots of German it was about sort of German identity or Germanic something I think they were interested in that or that there was a kind of united identity

in all these tales

that

that would help that help define Germanness maybe okay I think it might might have been to do with that so what is the name of the tale you'll be telling it's Hans the Hedgehog

incredible that that hasn't been Disneyfied

Well, wait till you hear it.

Yeah, because

but and but um and the other one that was a close second was uh was of course donkey cabbages

we can save that for a few minutes

yeah yeah

I think it's it's right to credit the source of the book.

I'm saying that because Ben said that to me a second ago.

Full disclosure, personally, I actually don't think it's right to, or I just don't care.

Personally.

You're essentially making an illegal audiobook.

And it's crime doesn't get any sexier

than the black market audiobooks world.

It's utterly ruthless.

Utterly thrilling.

So

anyway, picture yourselves.

So I want to get that kind of round-the-fire feel.

So picture yourself in an old,

it's a drafty cabin.

Okay.

But it's a warm, weirdly, it's a warm draft.

Nice.

Okay.

There's a lot of warm drafts.

Normally that means there's quite a serious fire directly outside.

It's not a volcano.

Yeah.

Normally it's evacuation time.

Yeah, it's definitely not fairy tale time.

It's not a go-to-bed story time.

It's forget your personal belongings.

Yeah.

It could be about rat to have carbon monoxide poisoning as well, possibly.

One of the last feelings you feel in that situation.

That's funny.

It's a warm breeze.

That's funny.

I can't leave my body your face.

Are we talking Bavarian Hillside?

So we're talking a Bavarian Hillside.

An old man has invited you into a little shack.

He's fine.

He's completely fine.

Yeah.

He's already given you Riddles 3,

which you've somehow passed.

And inappropriate

Nuzzles

Zilch.

Oh, Nuzzles?

What do you mean?

Yeah.

Well, he's not inappropriately touching anyone.

Background check.

He's been fully.

He's been fully DBS'd.

By Nuzzles, the private eye.

Yeah.

By Steve Nuzzles, the private eye.

No, he's been completely.

Deep DBS.

He's been DBS'.

He's got his driving license.

He's got that on him.

Biometrics checkout.

Biometrics checkout.

and um he's also only wearing a very very very tiny pair of pants so he can't be hiding anything

and he's not wearing a wire he's definitely not wearing a wire um anyway so he invites you into his little shack to tell you yeah tales three

but what be the first tale of the three it'd be the tale of Hans the Hedgehog, which I'll be reading to you.

So again, picture that.

You're in a little cabin.

that the man makes weird noises when he turns around.

It's just an eccentric thing.

He's got chronic pain.

Partly because, well, two years ago, and Spine views know this, he had his penis pecked off by Sparrow, didn't he?

And they didn't do a clean job.

Which is why, yeah, he ruised the day he said anything but my eyes.

He should have said anything but my eyes with one exception.

But since that day, he eases his pain by telling tales to weary travellers like you.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, picture yourself in the dark caverns of

the medieval past,

dark Europe, and a simpler time of wagon wheels

and wagons,

Sheep, same as today,

but more of them.

Or at least more of them in your close friend network.

Anyway, but I'll be reading this from a digireads.com book.

And that is, I think, a part of a company that's called Digireads.com Publishing.

Oh, it's so magical, isn't it?

Most of their profits from gambling and liquor.

And identity theft.

we don't need to trouble the reader, the audience, with the ISBN numbers, do we, Ben?

Um, is there an author?

What Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm?

Is that good enough for you?

Okay, okay, okay.

Um, so it's the complete Grimms traitor.

So let's go.

It's um,

it is

um, I've got to go through.

So, I've got to go through the um the preface by Michael Palin,

yeah,

but it's Palin with two N's

and Michael with two H's.

He gets about, I know exactly the guy you mean.

Yeah.

It's not.

Yeah.

I booked him for my 40th.

He takes a lot of Michael Palin's work, doesn't he?

Oh, sorry, mate.

I didn't realise.

I thought I explained I was Michael Palin.

Sorry, mate.

He's opened a lot of supermarkets.

Anyway, come on.

So some of the, I'm just going through the contents on my Kindle.

There's some quite good names of other other Tales Come up.

The Three Spinning Women.

These are all ones we can do another day.

The Valiant Little Taylor.

Yeah, a lot of them would make great pub names as well.

Yes, that's true.

The Seven Ravens.

The Singing Bone.

I think you'd want a few before you went there.

You'd want to be a few down.

Sorry, these Kindles, they aren't very good, but.

Henry is using...

By the way, dear listener, what is happening is Henry is using an old showbiz trick called Playing for Time.

Playing for time, it's lost in control.

Completely lost control.

I don't know what's going on.

Um, oh, there's quite a good um, we won't be hearing today the girl without hands.

Thank you.

Ah, here we are, Hands the Hedgehog.

Okay, okay, great.

Let's do it.

There once was a countryman countryman who had money and land in plenty.

But how rich soever he was, one thing was still wanting in his happiness.

He had no children.

Often, when he went into the town with the other peasants, they mocked him and asked him why he had no children.

At last he became angry, and when he got home, he said, I will have a child, even if it be a hedgehog.

Always a bad thing to say in a fairy tale context.

Any of that sort of rhetorical stuff will just happen.

Oh,

sometimes I wish my legs were made of cheese.

No!

You never say that kind of thing.

Just keep it to yourself.

Keep it to yourself.

That's very weird rhetoric to reach for hedgehog.

Yeah, I know.

Then his wife had a child that was a hedgehog in the upper part of his body.

and a boy in the lower.

And when she saw the child, she was terrified.

Tricky labor?

They don't cover that.

As long as there's not a breach, I think.

You've got to make sure the spikes are facing the right way, basically.

Let's not think about barbs and let's move on.

The screeching was heard around the whole world,

from East Bavaria to West Bavaria.

When she saw the child, she was terrified and said,

See,

there thou hast brought ill luck on us.

Then said the man, what can be done now?

The boy must be christened, but we shall not be able to get a godfather for him.

Yeah, is that the major problem?

Is that the major problem right there?

Semi-porcupinoid child.

Oh, but who's going to give him a present?

Who's going to sometimes remember to give him a present like that?

Who's going to usually forget?

Who's going to usually forget?

Third days and Christmas, and then probably once every year, every third year, overdo it because they have forgotten for the last three years and send

a six-year-old 100 quid.

Yeah.

But in Euros.

and then decide that the whole thing doesn't really make sense anymore after the age of 14 anyway

but then come in hard at 17 by sending like some teletaboo figures or something just totally confused totally get it wrong yeah forgetting name gender age

hobbies interests

whether they're half a hedgehog

mind you i tell you what it's it's tough enough to be fair i think they're right to not get a godfather because because I'm a godfather.

I find it bloody hard work.

Same, I'm a bad one as well.

Yeah.

Inexcusably bad.

I've got nice godchildren as well.

It's not their fault.

Christ.

One thing that my brother does when he godfathers, a bit of a life hack for godfathering, is

because

he's one of these unfortunate people that a lot of people like.

He's been made godfather by so many people.

But what he does is he, for birthdays,

I think he puts some money into a little, the present goes into a little fund or something, which then they get when they're 18 or something.

So essentially, instead of birthdays and Christmas, having to think, do the admin.

It's direct evid time.

It's

D D time.

And so it becomes just, yeah, it's a purely sort of backs

did you

find though?

Because I think when you hit 18, if you're a little pot of cash, I mean, what's not to like?

And then what happens is at the age of 18, your godson or daughter can afford enough cigarettes to actually get properly addicted within

about six months

then you've really made an impact

um

great

the woman said so so the father said the issue about the godfather yeah and the woman said and we cannot call him anything else but hands the hedgehog

why i don't know okay i mean

also it's a bit harsh because he's only half hedgehog isn't it Yeah, he should be Hans the Hemi Hedgehog.

Hans the Hemi Hedgehog.

When he was christened, the parson said, he cannot go into any ordinary bed because of his spikes.

So a little straw

wind your neck in, wind your shawl.

I mean, it's not your remit.

It's got

all to do with you.

You've already had a bit of a chicken named after your nose.

Is that not enough?

Stop getting into people's business.

Also, what is a parson?

Because I tell you what, hundreds of years from now, someone called Henry Packer won't know.

They'll know it's something to do with.

Because

the parson, priest, vicar, monk, clergyman.

Yeah.

There's so many of similarish things.

Dean.

Sleet.

Dean.

Curate.

Preacher.

Bishop.

Archbishop.

Bishop.

Archbishop.

Sleet bishop.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What the hell is a parson?

Chaplain.

Champlain.

There's so many of them.

Yeah.

Chaplain at least makes some sense, doesn't it?

A pope.

Pope.

Mega Pope.

Mega Pope.

The only one.

So yeah, so the Parsons doing that, yeah.

Well, it's that thing.

People always give you advice on your parenting, don't they, Mike, I suppose.

Is that right?

People are like, oh, yeah, yeah, they love it.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, not most people, but it's a minority of people, but that minority, they're really,

they love it, so they can feel like a majority because

they're active.

Our Barry's spikes fell off when he was only two, actually.

Yeah.

He's very special.

He's a very special.

He doesn't make any difference to Hans or the soil.

No, sorry.

Sorry.

Barry's just a very, very, very special hemihog.

So a little straw was put behind the stove, and Hans the hedgehog was laid on it.

His mother could not suckle him.

I mean, we don't need the next sentence.

For he would have pricked her with his quills.

You see, I think that's unfair.

And again, I mean,

we all know the quills of a...

The quills of a hedgehog

don't go forwards from the snout.

Otherwise, how's it going to eat?

That's a very good point, Mike.

I didn't notice that.

How's a hedgehog going to suckle from its own mother?

She definitely could have suckled them.

She definitely could have suckled him.

Yeah, definitely.

That's the might she just have been viscerally disgusted by it's possible, yes.

Let's face it, listen.

I don't want to be judgmental.

It can be a difficult time.

People can get depression, psychosis.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

And sure, if your child is a heavy hedgehog and you've not been briefed about it,

is there the support?

Is the health visitor just does the health visitor understand what to do about it?

I mean, you know, know,

there may not have been the support.

It's a different time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I apologize.

But of course, he is only hedgehog from the...

Where's he?

Which bit of his?

Waist up.

Waist up.

Hemi.

Yeah, very much in the hemi-sected plane.

Hemi, okay.

Yeah.

Okay, anyway, so he lay there behind the stove for eight years.

It's a long time, isn't it?

And also, we don't know have they clothed the bottom half?

He does have.

Well, the thing about these fairy tales is they leave out a lot.

And you don't really get any

sort of back.

You don't get any information that isn't just pushing the story on, I find.

Because

everything else has been, all the fat has come off the story through the passage of time.

It's kind of evolved a bit to become just what it needs to be to make its completely, utterly bonkers point.

But so things like that,

you just don't know.

But eight years years have passed and nothing crucial to the to the great you know okay so the tale has happened in eight years obviously the box set or the novelization or whatever would go into like what was it what his school days like yeah did he did he get bullied um anyway so he laid there by the stairs for eight years and his father was tired of him and thought if he would but die

yeah

he did not die however but remained lying there.

Now it happened that there was a fair in the town, and the peasant was about to go to it and asked his wife what he should bring back with him for her.

A little meat and a couple of white rolls, which are wanted for the house.

Push the boat out a bit like, come on,

it's mince sandwiches tonight.

It's no fiber again tonight.

Yeah, they're very, very fiber-like fiber-like these tails.

Yeah.

Everyone's quite blocked up.

It says then he asked the servant, and she wanted a pair of slippers and some stockings with clocks.

Clocks.

The funny thing is very weird details come through that stuck, that stick in these tails.

I don't know why, but that's...

She wore stockings with clocks.

Which feels like quite a modern thing.

It feels like some sort of hipster in East London would have.

Yeah, or kind of a West Coast 80s hip-hop kind of thing.

What do you mean like a huge clock hanging, like an actual clock?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, see, I thought we meant clock design, but maybe it means actual clocks hanging off of it.

Well, I don't know.

Who knows?

All right.

At last, he said, and what will thou have, Hans, my hedgehog?

Dear father, he said, do bring me now

a Gillette Mac 3.

Loads of little chunks of pineapple and cheese.

So I'm going to offer, and this is a real offer,

five thousand pounds

to either of you, but I want to see your hands.

There's no googling.

I want to see your hands.

Yeah, five thousand pounds to the bean that can get guess what he wants.

Dear father, he said, do bring me

17 geese.

It's backs time,

God.

Mike?

I'll give you a clue if you want.

It's an old.

It's a flute made of the finest silks.

You're actually not a million miles off.

It is a woodwind instrument, kind of.

What?

Yeah.

It's dear father who said, do bring me bagpipes.

Mike's weirdly close.

That is a flute made of fabric.

That is actually a fabric.

Oh my God.

This could have been in the courts for years.

This would have been such a difficult case.

I'd have had to have got the OJ people.

Why are you putting it in the past tense, Henry?

What?

Why are you saying it would have been?

It's coming up, mate.

It's coming up.

Time to ring Johnny Cochrane.

You'll wish you'll shove out that five grand by the time I'm finished with you.

Would it have been so simple?

Pagpipes.

When therefore the father came home again, he gave his wife, what he'd bought for her, meat and white rolls.

And then he gave...

By the way, this is another thing which happens in fairy tales for some reason.

There's lots of repetition.

So I said that everything's been cut off that isn't necessary, but there's also lots of repetition.

And somehow both those things are true.

Meat and white rolls.

And then he gave the maid the slippers and the stockings with clocks.

And lastly, he went behind the stove and gave Hans the Hedgehog the bagpipes.

And when Hans the Hedgehog had the bagpipes, he said, Dear father, do go to the forge and get the cock shod.

And then I will ride away and never come back again.

What's the cock shod?

He means get the cock shod, as in get the

get some...

Oh, nail some shoes onto a chicken.

Yes.

Terrific.

And again, in a more sort of realistic way, this would need a bit of back and forth in the conversation of like, why do you want the cock?

How am I going to shod it?

No one's ever shod a cock.

Are we going to get the conversation between the farmer and the blacksmith who's like, like, oh, mate, what?

What?

Hang on.

Fairs in.

I have specifically got the day off today.

You want me to do what?

What?

I can't.

I've got something that was really dangerous for the cock.

I've got a sore throat, which is incurable and it's going to kill me.

I mean, life's hard enough.

Just get it done.

Let me go home and eat my meat and white rolls, please.

So I can then get started on my three-hour excruciating dump.

you've got to fill the evenings.

Those evenings are hard to fill at that time.

What else are you going to do?

Yeah,

but a glacial paste turb

and glacial inconsistency as well.

Glacial in almost every way.

But very, very, very, very hot.

Very, very painfully hot glacier.

Passing through the valley of Uranus.

Cleaving it never the same.

Never the same again.

Cleaving a valley.

So, on this, the father was delighted to think that he was going to get rid of him and had the cock shod for him.

And when it was done, Hans the Hedgehog got on it and rode away.

But took

two things with him: £20,000

for the entire pension fund, all concealed in the backfalls.

okay.

So, what does he take with him?

Two things.

So it's two things.

It's something and something.

Are they things that have been referenced already?

No.

No.

Of course, because that's the way it goes.

So, yeah.

Okay.

Is it his father's hat

and his mother's dress?

Oh, that's good.

Oh, clever, clever, clever, clever sausage, but no.

The candle's wicked and the spoon.

You've cleared him out.

So will we be able to combine them into one court case?

We're going to have to go to

two separate court cases.

We'll be working

in parallel.

Yeah, yeah.

So

he took with him swine and asses.

So

pigs and donkeys, does that mean?

Yeah.

Pigs and donkeys.

With him, which he intended.

Yeah.

Great question.

And it's much easier to shod a pig, surely.

Or an ass.

I mean, an ass is basically a thing to get around on, isn't it?

It's like a Bavarian cart.

That's the right sort of hood.

Basically a Bavarian hood.

I think.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Which he intended to keep in the forest.

So he's going to sort of keep them.

When they got there, he made the cock fly onto a high tree with him.

And there he sat for many a long year

and watched his asses and swine until the herd was quite large.

The horrible hybrid was created.

The swash.

The bavarian swass.

The Bavarian swass.

My pretties, dance, dance your horrible, lolloping, weird dance.

Lollop for me.

Lollop for me.

Lollop again.

I know I am a monster.

But But lollop.

It's basically the end of like Weber story.

Yeah, exactly.

Make the march for me, General Cock.

So

his father knew nothing about it.

So while he was sitting in the tree, however, he played his bagpipes and made music, which was very beautiful.

Which, to me is the most unbelievable part of the story so far.

They're quite like bagpipes.

You think he punctured the bag?

I just like

bagpipes

don't always sound great, but they do when they're played well.

It can be rousing.

It can be rousing.

Amazing grace on bagpipes still brings a tear to my eye.

So while he was sitting in the treehouse, he played his bagpipes and made music, which was very beautiful.

Once a king came traveling by, because it's basically there's only kings and peasants.

Was it us having this conversation, or somewhere I read this?

About how there's no middle class in

fairy tales.

You're a king or a peasant.

Or you're a prince or you're a pauper.

You know what I mean?

You tend to, certainly most of them,

you're a poor person who then suddenly becomes a king or gets to kill.

You do get artisanal types, don't you?

There's the occasional artisanal type, but

anyway, there's a lot of kings wondering about.

Yeah.

There's a lot of castles that just have a king in them.

And is that because

it's a sort of series of kingdom states that aren't?

There's lots of fiefdoms.

Lots of

that sort of thing.

Hmm.

I almost knew something just then.

It was good enough, I thought.

But didn't fully.

A king came travelling by who'd lost his way and heard the music.

He was astonished at it.

and sent his servant forth to look all round and see from whence this music came.

He spied about, but saw nothing but a little animal sitting up aloft on the tree, which looked like a cock with a hedgehog on it,

which made this music.

Can I say,

I'm one step ahead of the narrative, I'm pretty sure I know who that is.

Then the king told the servant he was to ask why he sat there and if he knew the road which led to his kingdom.

So Hans the Hedgehog descended from the tree and said he would show the way if the king would write a bond

and promise him whatever he met first in the royal courtyard as soon as he arrived at home

so that this happens all the time

weird wages yeah yeah but it's always don't make the deal don't give me the thing that you first meet when you go home yeah and this has happened in loads of the tales and quite often which i think pan wouldn't like there's this some sometimes the person goes oh that's fine it'll just be my dog

So it means that they're sort of fine as giving away the dog and then you go home.

It's always

your favourite daughter comes out to greet you.

So essentially he's made a wager.

He's giving him the route home in return for the first thing he meets when he rides home.

Then the king thought, I can easily do that.

Hans the hedgehog understands nothing and I can write what I like.

So he thinks the Hans Hedgehog won't be able to read the

immediately calling him Hans the Hedgehog as well.

He's fine with it.

I've got the measure of Hans the Hedgehog, I think.

I just met a bloke that's half hedgehog.

It fucking sits on a chicken with shoes up a tree playing bagpipes

with

a set of deformed semi-porcelines, semi-donkey sort of

stop and have some sugar.

He's taking it all very lightly.

So the king took his pen and ink.

Sorry,

I'm confused.

Why does the king think that Hans is an idiot?

Why is he writing something down?

Sorry to have missed something.

So essentially,

so

Hans the Hedgehog is saying, I'll give you the directions home in return for a bond, essentially a written promise.

Oh, I see.

A written promise, I see.

That you will give me the first thing you see when you get back.

But he's going, I'll just write any old bollocks.

Because Hans the Hedgehog.

If I know Hans the Hedgehog,

I know that he won't be able to read.

I think maybe because he's half hedgehog, he's assuming that...

I mean, that's all he's got to go on.

I thought that just because he's quite hedgehogged.

Hans reads with his bottom half.

Yeah.

So unless he can do penis braille, I'm going to be trying.

So the king took the pen and ink and wrote something.

And when he'd done it, Hans the Hedgehog showed him the way and

he got safely home.

But his daughter, when she saw him from afar, was so overjoyed that she ran to meet him and kissed him.

Then he remembered Hans the Hedgehog.

I mean, if I'd been a half-hedgehog child, I wouldn't.

I'd have been thinking about him all the way home, I'm pretty sure.

Oh, hang on a minute.

Oh, no.

That written wager I made with the flu.

With a semi-hedgehog cockrider.

and told her what had happened and that he had been forced to promise whatsoever first met him when he got home to a very strange animal which sat on a cock as if it were a horse and made beautiful music.

But instead of writing that he should have what he wanted, he'd written that he should not have it.

Thereupon the princess was glad and said he'd done well, for she never would have gone away with the hedgehog.

Hans the hedgehog, however, looked after his asses and pigs and was always merry and sat on the tree and played his bagpipes.

Now it came to pass that another king came journeying by

with his attendants and runners.

Again, very similar things happen a couple of times in a row, quite often.

It'd be a bit like sort of in EastEnders or whatever.

If like Phil comes in and goes,

can I have some diesel, please, to the garage, or whatever?

Yeah.

They give it to him and he goes off.

And then Grant comes in and goes, Can I have some diesel, please?

And goes off.

That is kind of what happens in a petrol station, though, isn't it?

You're just describing

the Mitchell brothers into a pretty difficult show garage.

Yeah.

Which is EastEnders.

Which is East Enders, basically.

It'd be more like if Phil Mitchell came in riding on a chicken's if it was a horse,

asked if it was diesel,

and then

Grant Mitchell did the same.

Then you'd start being like, hang on.

Yeah.

And I think East Enders would actually finally then get a global audience and become the biggest TV show ever made, since Mr.

Beam.

Now it came to pass another King's game journey in by with his attendants and his runners.

And he'd also lost his way.

It'd be like if at the end of Indiana Jones and the

Raiders of the Lost Ark.

And then a research group from Sorbonne came along.

Came along.

University

group of archaeologists.

And then they tried to find the little stone face that was in a thing and then the rock things around.

You know what I mean?

Anyway.

Getting lost is quite a bigger thing in fairy tales.

Yes, yes.

And I think it's because...

From the path.

Yeah, like in the modern day, it's actually quite hard to get lost properly.

Back then, I think everything was like forested, and you'd get lost on a daily basis, and it'd be actually really horrible.

Yes, that's true.

Thick, thick, high forests.

Yeah, because it's pretty even maps, let alone Google maps.

It's just horror, absolute horror.

Oh, that's a very good point.

It's been terrifying.

Because also in the current day, it would be Hans Hedgehog would go, oh, do you think basically the king would have to call his daughter in advance?

Go, can you just bring out that half a red onion in the fridge?

Just throw that at me from the battlements.

Throw Throw a face on it.

I have to meet it though.

Is that meeting?

Was that getting hit by a red onion?

What does it take to eat, to meet a red onion?

To truly meet it on its level.

To truly understand it.

Can you send out Sepharavon the Twat to meet me when I get...

Because we have been trying to get rid of him for years.

You just can't sack people these days.

You can't sack people these days.

Okay.

So another king came along.

He'd lost his way and he did not know how to get home again because the forest was so large.

He likewise heard the beautiful music from a distance and asked his runner what could be that could be and told him to go and see.

Then the runner went under the tree and saw the cock sitting at the top of it and Hans the Hedgehog on the cock, Hans the Hedgehog on the cock.

The runner asked him,

what was he about up there?

I'm keeping my asses and my pigs.

But what is your desire?

The messenger said that they'd lost their way and could not get back into their own kingdom and asked if he would not show them the way.

Hans the Hedgehog got down the tree with the cock and told the aged king that he would show him the way if he would give him for his own whatever first met him in front of his royal palace.

The king said yes and wrote a promise to Hans the Hedgehog that he should have done this.

That done,

in the era of box sets and sort of Netflix series, it doesn't wash anymore this kind of narrative.

You can't have it.

Episode two can't be the same as episode one.

It's a fuller episode and there's going to be a fearsome backlash and Studio Johnson going to be talking about it for years,

why Hans the Hedgehog got cancelled.

I don't care how much Jesse Plemons is in this.

Yeah, it's getting cancelled.

He wrote, so the king said, yes, wrote a promise to Hans Hedgehog that he should have this.

That done, but he hasn't done the thing of writing something different.

Fair play.

That done, Hans rode on before him on the cock and pointed out the way and the king reached his kingdom again in safety.

When he got to the courtyard, there was great rejoicing.

Now, he had only one daughter who was very beautiful.

She ran out to meet him and threw her arms around his neck and was delighted to have her old father back again.

She asked him where in the world he'd been so long.

So he told her how he'd lost his way and had very nearly not come back at all.

But that as he was travelling through a great forest, a creature, half hedger, half man, who was sitting astride a cock in a high tree and making music, had shown him the way and helped him to get out, explaining this to his daughter.

But in return, he promised him whatsoever first met him in the royal courtyard and how she herself,

and how that was she herself, which made him unhappy now.

But on this, she promised that for love of her father, she would willingly go with Hans if he came.

So

she's a real team player, this one.

Well, they're respecting a bond, is what they're doing, which I think is probably central to what this story is about.

They're respecting a bond,

a written agreement.

Essentially, it's before check guarantee cards.

Yes.

You had these tales, I suppose, to make sure people just.

You had daughters.

You had daughters.

Yeah.

Before those three little numbers in the Buckby credit card.

Yeah, before those.

This.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This podcast is sponsored by Daughters, the traditional financial security.

The old-fashioned way.

Thanks, Carol.

Taking the hit for the poor decisions of fathers for generations.

Since 1125.

Curse you, Carol.

Hans the Hedgehog, however, took care of his pigs and the pigs multiplied until they became so many in number that the whole forest was filled filled with them.

Then Hans the Hedgehog resolved not to live in the forest any longer and sent word to his father to have every sty in the village emptied, for he was coming with such a great herd that all might kill who wished to do so.

So that's a lovely mass slaughter scene, isn't it?

Everyone in the village can literally slaughter any of his swine.

It doesn't get better than that.

It's like a sort of supermarket sweep.

Supermarket sweep.

An abbot of blood.

Or it's like the song It's Raining Men.

But for pork, but for pork.

It's a sort of, yeah, it's a kind of bovine flood.

Wow.

Not Paul Sign.

Sorry,

it's a Paul Sign.

It's a Paul Sign flood.

Hang on.

Is the king's daughter now living with him in the forest?

No, the deal was that should he come?

Well, she's got it.

Well done.

Yeah.

Ah, so should he go to the should he come to claim her?

Yeah, yeah.

I hadn't.

Yeah, I hadn't put that.

When his father heard that, he was troubled, for he thought Hans the Hedgehog had died long ago.

He doesn't come out well, Felix.

He doesn't come out well at all, the father.

Hans the Hedgehog, however.

I feel like we could call him Hans now.

I'm not going to forget what he's going.

And there isn't anyone else put hands in the story.

This is where you turn the page and there is immediately there's another hands.

All of the pigs were called hands.

Hans the Hedgehog, however, seated himself on the cock and drove the pigs before him into the village and ordered the slaughter to begin.

Ha!

But there was a killing and a chopping that might have been heard two miles off.

Oh, God.

That's got an exclamation mark on it.

And everyone sitting around the fire has a nice enjoy that moment together.

And if we needed someone to give voice to that sound, we are with

the foremost hog in person.

Oh, my God.

As luck would have it.

Just have to layer it over 200 times.

That's, I mean, within the village, I mean, there's going to be people of all ages.

That is going to be someone's first memory.

That day.

Oh, yeah.

Isn't it?

The mass slaughtering of and of course, life will just never be as good again.

They'll just never be able to live up to that moment.

It'll be a very melancholy life, won't it?

Of course,

this, this also, this story is also the origin of the phenomenon known as

form amps, isn't it?

Form amps, which is, of course, the fear of of missing out on a massive pig slaughtering.

For anyone that wasn't there that day.

A really nasty case of form amps.

Okay.

There's a killing and...

Ah, but there's a killing and a choppin.

After this, Hans the Hedgehog said, Father, let me have the cock shod once more at the forge, and then I will ride away and never come back as long as I live.

I've made that promise before.

Yeah, that's true.

Then the father had the cock cock shod once more and was pleased that Hans the Hedgehog would never return again.

So the cock's been re-shod.

He's not winning down to the earth this guy.

He's really not.

Take his world's best dad mug off him.

Yeah.

Kill a pig with it.

And kill one of the stragglers with it.

Hans the hedgehog rode away to the first kingdom.

There, the king had commanded that whosoever came mounted on a cock and had bagpipes with him should be shot at

i think that would be taken as implicit anyway frankly if i was if i was a castle battlement sentry i saw that coming i'd i'd pop a few off anyway you would pop a few off wouldn't you whether that's sop or not you know

it's so bleak it's a very it's very very bleak this story

um

so it's a bit sort of like succession or something where no no one's very nice

But you sort of root for hands to hedge.

You do find yourself rooting for hands to the hedgehog for it.

It's been the least of the dicks.

Now, Hands for Hedgehog, to be fair, has been Peter.

Well, apart from

he very much encouraged the mass slaughtering, didn't he?

And he has made quite

problematic deals with kings that he knew would cause problems.

Yes, that's true.

And also shotting a cockrol probably isn't very...

It's not on,

is it?

Yes, so there, the king had commanded that whosoever came mounted on a cock and had bagpipes with him should be shot at, cut down or stabbed by everyone.

Man, woman, and child.

So in a way, it's quite free because you can shoot, cut him down, or stab him, but it's quite prescriptive because everyone has to be involved.

You can do it your own way,

as long as you're involved.

Yeah.

So that he might not end.

Because the people who have been talking longing tonight i'm gonna i think i'm gonna stab him

you know what i mean yeah yeah i really want to go for a strangle because but it's not one of the options

um if i stab him but alternately strangle him between the stabs with that

when therefore hands the hedgehog came riding thither they all pressed forward against him with their pikes

But he spurred the cock and it flew up over the gate in front of the king's window and lighted there.

I got him.

Good

because even someone, some twats put some bits of iron on the bottom of his feet, haven't they?

But he's still flying in the way that all cocks can't, actually.

So he's done incredibly well.

At waist level.

So he flies up to a window, lights there, and Hans cried that the king must give him what he had promised or he would take both his life and his daughter's.

And that's classic, that's classic fairy tale, isn't it?

It's just the the wager being sort of demanded, well the what you owe being being asked for in pretty extreme terms.

Then the king began to speak to his daughter fair

and to beg her to go away with hands in order to save her own life and her father's.

So she dressed herself in white and her father gave her a carriage with six horses and magnificent attendants.

together with gold and possessions.

She seated herself in the carriage and placed Hans the hedgehog beside her with the cock cock and the bagpipes.

Bit of a gooseberry at this point, isn't it, the cock?

Can I ask a question?

Yeah.

Are we imagining that

the half-hedgehog, half-man is the size of a hedgehog or the size of a man?

Or is the man bit of the fin the size of a man, but the hedgehog bit the size of a hedgehog?

In which case, there's a really quick tapering that has to happen.

He can ride on the cock, right?

So he must be small.

Also, what's the orientation of the top half of him?

Is it facing

right angles to the legs, or is it straight up?

Is he just looking at the sky?

Would he presume it's sort of L-shaped?

Yeah.

And also, what trouser size is he going with?

Is it his human waist or

his hedge-off waist?

Because he'll have to have two waists, won't he?

It'll have two waists.

He'll have two waists.

That's the only thing we can be certain of.

I'm surprised it wasn't called hands with two waists.

Who's befuddled all the tailors in the kingdom?

We can't make trousers for this guy.

Until the tailor's daughter came.

Sweet, natured, and beautiful.

So she seated herself in the carriage, placed Hans there.

The cock's there, the bagpipes are there, and then they took leave and drove away, and the king thought he should never see her again.

He was, however, deceived in his expectation.

For when they were at a short distance from the town,

This bit isn't very nice.

Hans the hedgehog took her pretty clothes off and pierced her with his hedgehog's skin until she bled all over.

Hans.

Hans.

Come on, mate.

I mean there's anti-hero and there's just dick.

Oh,

that is the reward of your falseness, said he.

Go your way.

I will not have you.

And on that, he chased her home again and she was disgraced for the rest of her life.

Yeah.

It's really her fault, is it?

It's not her fault.

It's the It's the father.

Absolutely.

He should be getting pricked to Helen back.

The sexual politics are not great in these tales.

No.

A lot of the time.

Right.

Hans the Hedgehog, however, rode on further on the cock.

With his bagpipes, yes, all right, fine.

To the dominions of the second king, to whom he had shown the way.

This one, however, had arranged that if anyone resembling Hans the Hedgehog should come by,

they were to present arms, give him safe conduct, cry long life to him, and lead him to the royal palace.

Much better.

Much, much better people.

But when the king's daughter saw him, she was terrified, for he looked quite too strange.

So which side of him is

porcupine again?

Top half is hedgehog.

Top half is hedgehog.

Waist and above.

She should have thought it was weird that all his Tinder photos were from the waist down.

Belt and below is boy, higher than the hips, hog.

That's how you remember it.

But there's no rhyming.

No.

So you just remember it by knowing it.

Yes.

There was a bit of alliteration.

Oh, there's a bit of alliteration off.

Thanks, Art, mate.

Yeah, just alliteration.

Fucking hell.

Draw a thank you note.

Right.

She remembered, however, that she could not change her mind for she had given her promise to her father.

It's all these different promises.

So Hans the Hedgehog was welcomed by her and married to her and had to go with her to the royal table and she seated herself by his side and they ate and drank.

When the evening came and they wanted to go to sleep, she was afraid of his quills, but he told her she was not to fear, for no harm would befall her.

And he told the old king that he was to appoint four men to watch by the door of the chamber and light a great fire.

And when he entered the room and was about to get into bed, he would creep out of his hedgehog's skin and leave it lying there by the bedside.

And that the men were to run nimbly to it, throw it in the fire, and stay by it until it was consumed.

Leaving him with no skin.

A bloody

flayed flayed

wailing.

Oh, God, dear me.

You know what's going to be ready for some love making?

Oh, yeah.

Just don't touch any part of the body

because it really fucking hurts.

And no salt under any circumstances.

No salt.

Please wash your hands because you have, I did see you eating some salty onion rings earlier on.

And if even that will be agony, please.

And you did say that in your Tinder profile that one of your sex things was that you were into salt play.

I'm afraid that we can't do any of the salt play.

And also,

also, you like that thing about that, you said you like doing a role play where there's an explosion in a vinegar factory.

We also can't do that.

But I've got a similar fantasy about a soothing bal workshop where

you run into a man.

Some very sterile cling film you want into

a temperature-controlled environment.

Oh,

oh, antiseptic, baby.

Anyway, when the the clock struck eleven, he went into the chamber, stripped off the hedgehog's skin, and left it lying by the bed.

Then came the men and fetched it swiftly and threw it in the fire.

And when the fire had consumed it, he was delivered, and lay there in bed in human form, and was a handsome young man.

When the king's daughter saw that, she was glad.

And the next morning they arose joyfully, ate and drank, and then the marriage was properly solemnized.

Yeah.

But I'm just, I ain't no hedgehog anymore, but I do insist I do have to stay on the shod cock throughout

the love mic and playing the bagpipes.

And I will be eating slugs and flies throughout.

I've still got the hedgehog digestive system.

I'm absolutely riddled with parasites.

Absolutely riddled.

But luckily, it'd be fine if you catch someone to take an antibiotic.

Oh, hang on a moment.

Hans the hedgehog received the kingdom from the aged king.

When several years had passed, he went with his wife to his father and said that he was his son.

Hang on, say that again.

He went with his wife.

So when several years have passed, he went with his wife to his father

and said that he was his son.

Which Mike pointed out earlier, he said he wouldn't do, and he'd already said he wouldn't do that.

Yeah.

So he's not keeping his bows, but he's having written them down as a promise.

The father, however, declared he had no son.

He'd never had but one, and he'd been born like a hedgehog with spikes and had gone forth into the world.

Then Hans made himself known, and the old father rejoiced and went with him to his kingdom.

Now that's the end of the story, but blaming he got away with that, didn't he?

All right.

Hans has shown a great capacity for forgiveness there.

He's not taking his mother.

That's true.

Because his mother was the one who cast him off by the stove anyway.

Oh, was it?

Sorry, I know you said it was the end of the story.

We do have to then add the line.

Oh, sorry, yes.

And then Sparrows took their eyes.

And then Sparrows, Sparrows took all of their eyes.

And just for clarity,

that's eight eyes.

It's Hans's eyes.

It's his wife's eyes.

It's Mrs.

Hedgehog's eyes.

Also, the cock's eyes.

The cock.

And

thousands of hogs.

And thousands and thousands of dead hog eyes

were also taken.

So it's just I'm a geddon.

But actually, you know what?

Funnily enough,

this tale.

So some of the tales have these quirky details in them that have just persisted, and I don't know why.

There'll be some reason for it.

This tale actually has a little three-line coder at the end, which is, my tail is dumb.

And away it has run to little Augusta's house.

Oh, no idea what that means.

Maybe someone's strange.

Maybe someone can email.

Um, but um, yeah,

interesting.

I mean, I think listener-wise, we'll definitely have someone who's like a

folklore

expert or something.

Yeah, I'd love, I'd love some kind of context about what that was actually about and why Hans the Hedgehog, yeah, why that was written and

for like what do we learn from that?

Yeah,

well, we've definitely learned like what word word is bond, right?

If you, yes.

If you, if you, that's a big one.

Because it's gone well for everyone who stuck to their word with the bond, didn't they?

Yes.

Because they've, but the, the people who stuck to it got, you know, got

they had a nice marriage.

Everyone was sexy in the end and had a good heir and they had a lot of money and

kingdom.

Usually you usually get a kingdom and a decent spouse.

Yes.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

It's also, and also that must have been massively important, I guess.

Word is bond as a message.

Because basically, the fact is, word actually isn't bond.

You could get away with fucking anything in those days.

You could say you were the Pope.

No one could prove anything about anyone.

So the fact is, you could utterly con people and fake your identity so easily and just say you were God if you wanted.

Yeah.

You could say, oh, by the way, I'm donkey, but from the...

from from my knees to my ankles but um but i can never show you because an enchanted cock once told me that if i took my trousers off my kids would die die yeah exactly yeah so I guess

it's okay for us yeah but I guess to counterbalance that fact they would that they would have this is a kind of propaganda it's basically as Ben says instead of the three three numbers on your credit card to get people to to like

and I guess the way to do that is to to threaten heinous consequences extraordinarily heinous really really if you if you don't if you don't hold your bond because the dad does terrible things but none of it's to do with contracts yeah but also isn't it is it not much like it's like it's like keep your word your word is bond but do respect your dad even if he's awful do respect your dad even if he's a complete pillock yeah because the dad has had a very strange story i mean the reason he wanted a kid in the first place is just because his mates have taken the piss out of him i'd forgotten about that yeah it was peer pressure it was entirely peer pressure he wasn't particularly bothered about it in the first place makes an offhand remark about a hedgehog down we go gives up on him yeah gets rid of him his son treats him really well brings swine for him to and his those same mates to kill

goes away again comes back bring him gets him a he's got a sweet little pad in the palace do you know what i mean yeah but none of his crimes were were in contracts law no no i guess if you're a father you can sort of do what you can be a horrible dad yeah that's sort of allowed essentially so you're all lucky you didn't get punished for it yeah but if people weren't going to keep contracts the whole society would fall apart yeah and but but also there's much worse worse punishments this um in other tales for for contract breaking it's so common in in them um there was one i read i think it's called the goose girl maybe we'll do it another time basically there's a trick they do in a few of the tales where you've identified the person who's done something wrong it's quite often a woman and this woman has

it's a story where um

a a king sends his princess daughter off to go and get married or in another kingdom or something.

She goes with the servant and the servant girl ends up replacing pretending she's the princess the servant girl married they get to the next kingdom and so i don't know how she does get away with it it's probably an enchanted sort of grape or something involved but um

she she she they get to which she wears which she wears so they get to the next kingdom and the the the the the servant is pretending that she's the uh so the servant marries the king's daughter the king's son

and um eventually the deceit is exposed at this big banquet, probably at the marriage banquet probably, at the end of the story.

And then this happens in a few of the stories where the king knows now the falsehood that's been committed, that his son is marrying the wrong woman.

And she says to the bride,

who's the nasty servant, if someone was to pretend to not be who they were and was about to marry my son, what sort of punishment do you reckon?

you know, would be the right one to meet out?

What would be the right kind of punishment to meet out in that situation?

And she goes,

oh,

now what she should have said is,

give them 2,000 florins.

And the benefit of the doubt.

The benefit of the doubt.

But instead, she goes, oh, you know what I'd do if that happened to that person?

I would get a barrel with loads and loads of spikes on the inside,

put them in that barrel, and then have it dragged through the streets of the kingdom by horses until they were dead.

Ow, ow.

Wrong answer.

Because then, verily, she has chosen her own punishment.

But that's classic.

It's just, yeah, if you break your word, break your bond,

essentially.

But I suppose it's because there is very little real deterrent.

Yeah.

Because actually, so they need these tales to just propagandarify people.

There's no serious fraud office.

No serious fraud office.

Yeah.

Well, well, that was fantastic, Henry.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, I enjoyed that.

That was good sounds.

Oh, good.

Yeah, it's a good one.

There are so many.

Grimm's fairy tales, there are hundreds of them.

It's massive.

And they're almost none of them.

You could name like a dozen or something.

Yeah, exactly.

And there are loads of brilliantly macabre and weird.

And they're often quite appalling.

And, you know.

But they're certainly very interesting.

Good fun.

And yeah, I don't think we've got time for mine and Mike's, but I think.

So we shall

return to this format.

We'll come back to.

And then sparrows took their eyes.

See you next time.

There's always more eyes

than a hungry sparrow with a grudge.