Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixiii. (19 19) No. 2 3 



The Hedgehog and Apples Legend (as one may call it), was a very 

 favourite subject with the compilers of the Bestiaries and other 

 finely-illuminated Manuscripts of the Early-Mediaeval Period, scores of 

 which depict the Hedgehog in the act of either climbing trees or 

 running off with apples, grapes, or other fruits sticking on his back- 

 spines. There are, preserved in the British Museum, in the Bibliotheque 

 Nationale, and in Libraries at Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere, many 

 such manuscripts, of the Thirteenth to the Fifteenth Centuries, in which 

 this procedure (real or imaginary) of the Hedgehog is depicted.* 



In the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, most writers on 

 Natural History noticed the old legend, and few or none expressed 

 disbelief in it. 



Thus, John Maplet {d. 1592) saysf of the Hedgehog, that : — 



" He is as good a meatesman and catour for him selfe as anything 

 living is. For, when his vittayles be scant or nighe well spent, he 

 getteth abrode to orchards and groaves, where he hunteth after vines 

 and other the best fruite. At the vine (as, likewise, at the apple tree), 

 he playeth his part thus : He goeth up to the boughes and shaketh 

 them [/.(?., the grapes and apples] downe. When he hath perceived he 

 hath shaken down inough, he cometh apace downe and gathereth the 

 grapes or apples dispersed abrode togither ; and, when he hath done, 

 he falleth heavily upon the heape and so, almost on everie prickle or 

 brestle, he getteth an apple or grape, and home he goeth." 



A few years later, Stephen Batman wrote : — \ 



"The urchin is a beaste of purveyance ; for he climbeth upon a vine 

 or an apple tree and shaketh down grapes and apples. And, when 

 they be felled, he walloweth on them, and sticketh his prickles in them, 

 and so beareth meat to his children, in that manner wise. . . . And 

 beside the apples that he beareth on his backe always, he beareth one 

 in his mouth. And, after that he is charged [/>., loaded with grapes 

 or with apples], if any apple or grape fall out of the pikes in any 

 manner wise, then, from indignation, he throweth away off his backe all 

 the other deal ; and oft turneth again to the tree, to charge him again 

 with a fresh charge." 



* See, for example, Roy. MS., 12, F. xiii., which is of about the year 1200. It 

 contains (fo. 45) a drawing representing three apple trees, from which many apples 

 have fallen. Among the latter are three Hedgehogs, two rolling on the apples, 

 while the third, laden with eight or ten apples, runs off to his hole in an adjacent 

 bank. 



\ A Greene Forest or Natural Historie, by John Maplet, M.A., fo. 89 obv. 

 (Lond., I5'57). 



X Barthonte his Book, book xviii., sees. 62-63 (Lond., 1582). 



