CELEBRATING "GROUNDHOG DAY" WITH SOME FAMOUS HEDGEHOGS...

If you read my February 2nd post last year, you may remember that hedgehogs have everything to do with what we Americans call "Groundhog Day" and the simultaneously occurring Christian celebration of "Candlemas" (last year's post is HERE).

Paper sculpture by Canadian artist, Calvin Nicholls [photo source here]

This year, I thought it would be fun to remind you of some famous literary hedgehogs.  As you will see, they show up quite often in British children's literature...

Hedgehogs were an intricate part of Alice's game of croquet:
"Get to your places!" shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder... and the game began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.

illustration by Sir John Tenniel
from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.


American author/artist Jan Brett's Picture Books: 
Have you noticed who's wearing The Hat?  Hedgie also shows up in Jan's books The Mitten, and Hedgie's Surprise.  Her website has some easy instructions on "How to Draw a Hedgehog".

Hedgehogs often show up in the Redwall Series by Brian Jacques:
These prickly beasts come from all walks of life, from warriors to cooks to riverbeasts. They are typically easy-going and friendly, though a few have been known to become eccentric or insane in old age. Many Hedgehogs come from a clan or tribe, such as the Dillypins or Waterhogs, and it is traditional (though not exclusive) for the cellarkeeper of Redwall Abbey to be a hedgehog. [source: Redwall Wiki]

Note: British author Brian Jacques died last year on February 5th.  His wonderful series was a family favorite.  To read my short tribute, click here.

Hedgehogs can do laundry. 
Well, at least Beatrix Potter's "Mrs. Tiggywinkle" could.  (She is probably my favorite hedgehog.)

Water Color Artist, Valerie Greeley...
I'll leave you with this cute little hedgehog, by Valerie Greeley. You can buy the print here from her Etsy shop, Acornmoon. The print is a reproduction of a water color illustration from her children's book, Down the Lane.  Another picture book by Valerie featuring hedgehogs is Field Animals.  (Both books - though currently out of print - are available on Amazon.)

Hedgehog, by Valerie Greeley

NO MORE TWIST!

THE TAILOR OF GLOUCESTER by Beatrix Potter is about a tailor whose work on a waistcoat is finished by the grateful mice he rescues from his cat, Simpkin.  It was based on a real world incident involving a tailor - John Pritchard, from Gloucester - who was commissioned to make a suit for the new mayor.  The tailor  returned to his shop on a Monday morning to find the suit completed except for one buttonhole. A note attached read, "No more twist". His assistants had finished the coat in the night, but Pritchard encouraged a fictitious explanation that fairies had done the work and the incident became a local legend.

"A mouse threads a needle with cherry coloured twist."

"No more twist."

Beatrix Potter set her tale in the 18th Century. She made an extraordinary effort to create the setting as authentic as possible. Passing a tailor’s shop in Chelsea one day, she deliberately tore a button off her coat and took it in to be mended so she could observe first hand the tailor’s posture, tools and workbench.  She went to the same great lengths in seeking inspiration for the Mayor of Gloucester's 18th Century embroidered waistcoat when she visited the costume collection owned by the local museum in South Kensington, the "Victoria and Albert Museum".

Cream satin waistcoat embroidered with
coloured silk, Gloucester, England, UK, 1770.
Museum no. 652A-1898

She wrote to her publisher, Norman Warne:
I have been delighted to find I may draw some most beautiful 18th century clothes at the South Kensington Museum. I had been looking at them for a long time in an inconvenient dark corner of the Goldsmith’s Court, but had no idea they could be taken out of the case. The clerk says I could have any article put on a table in one of the offices, which will be most convenient.
(Her sketches are so accurate that it is possible to identify the original garments, including the mayor’s waistcoat, "worked with poppies and corn-flowers", which can be found in the Victoria & Albert Museum's costume collections to this day!)

Beatrix's sketch of the waistcoat.

In May 1903, Beatrix made many sketches of the town of Gloucester.  The street scenes in her story, particularly that of the tailor’s shop in College Court, depict actual places in the city.

Miss Potter gave a copy of the book to her Chelsea tailor who, in turn, displayed it to a representative of the trade journal, The Tailor & Cutter. The journal's review appeared on Christmas Eve 1903:

...we think it is by far the prettiest story connected with tailoring we have ever read, and as it is full of that spirit of Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men, we are not ashamed to confess that it brought the moisture to our eyes, as well as the smile to our face. It is got up in choicest style and illustrated by twenty-seven of the prettiest pictures it is possible to imagine.
(Source: Victoria and Albert Museum website. Visit their Beatrix Potter Page!)