Right. So, last night, I had insomnia and was bored...

[capri0mni]

So I decided to do a Google Image Search for "Hans my Hedgehog," to see which scenes were most often illustrated (If I'd gotten around to it earlier for naarmamo, I might have challenged myself to draw the scene where Hans drops his hedgehog hide, as he climbs into the marriage bed).

Anyway, one hit was this photoshopped image from Worth1000.com, for the contest of "Fairy Tales can come true":

Hans my Hedgehog

Putting in the German name for the story: "Hans mein Igel" got more hits, including this art-doll version (Website in German, with English translation):

Hans mein Igel

(When I saw the thumbnail, at first, I thought it was a picture of someone dressed in a costume as Hans... Now, that would be scary, coming down the street on Halloween night -- especially if the costumed person could really play a real set of bagpipes as he went--no pedophiles would dare aproach the kiddies who had that as an escort).

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Also, on Wednesday, I watched a documentary on people who grow giant pumpkins. Even as I was getting emotionally involved with the different growers (the documentaries in this series are predictably manipulative), I couldn't help thinking: "What a waste! All that land, all that water, time and effort for a single fruit." And it was, as far as I could tell, just for show and bragging rights. I mean, no one even mentioned making pies from them.

Then, the next day, I thought of the rhyme:

Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater
Had a wife and couldn't keep her,
he put her in a pumpkin shell --

Dried guords make great bird houses... if the same could be done with the shell of one of these pumpkins, you'd have a two-adult sleeper, easy...

Still, too much of a waste of energy and resourses, if you ask me...

Comments

[pedanther]

Those are both nifty pictures (and much cuter than the more familiar version). Something about the expression in the rooster's eye in the Worth1000 picture makes me think that he's thinking "Maybe if I stand here very quietly and don't move a muscle, it'll be gone when I turn around..."


Giant pumpkins... there was an episode of one of those 'Twilight Zone'-type TV series where a crabby old lady gets her hands on some kind of special growth formula, which she uses to grow a pumpkin as large as a car, planning to use it to win the local vegetable competition. And she gets into all kinds of trouble trying to transport it to where the competition is being held, and when she finally gets there, it turns out all the other competitors had the formula too, and her pumpkin still comes last.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

I actually liked Henson's Storyteller series, and his retelling of "Hans." Though I do wish he'd stuck with the original, and had Hans be hedgehog-sized, and living in the top of a tree (talking about pushing your personal comfort zone!) instead of living in an abandoned castle.

Still, one of the things he did that I liked was the good princess's answer to "But don't you think I'm ugly?"

"Not as ugly as a broken promise."