This one is all about writing concisely and with interest (not something I do very often), so I am hoping for a steep learning curve here! My neck is suffering badly, so I do need to get away from the keyboard for a bit...especially as we are having ANOTHER sweltering day and by mid afternoon my craft room becomes quite the heat box, even when temperatures are more moderate, despite the double glazing and my trusty fan.
At Every Inchie Monday, the animal for this week is Hedgehog. We do not have hedgehogs here in Australia...although they are located throughout most of the rest of the world, with an introduced population in New Zealand.
ur closest animal is the echidna and although both are spiny skinned mammals, they belong to different taxonomic families and orders.
The hedgehog has always seemed a sweet little chap to me, occurring throughout my early readings in Beatrix Potters stories and the illustrations of many of my early storybooks.
Later I was intrigued to read of the very negative image they had amongst county folk and the myths about the behaviours that led, in Elizabethan times, to a bounty being paid for their slaughter due to the widely believed ability of these little chaps to drain a milk cow dry overnight! They must be a pretty tenacious life form in order to survive these sorts of challenges to their existence...I suppose being small and nocturnal has helped.
There are literary references in many writers works, including Shakespere, Pliny, Aristotle and even Charles Darwin, although most of the writings I have seen or read references to do not seem to be based on actual observation of the animal, rather depending on myth and hearsay to draw their conclusions.
I also found a reference to a lovely little bas-relief on the West Front of Amiens Cathedral, in France that caught my eye...
A friend from my later life grew up in Yorkshire and she referred to these animals as "loompies", (that is, lumpies, but with her lovely accent included). I cannot find any reference to this name elsewhere, although they seem to have been given many other usually descriptive names in different cultures...names such as hedgepig, hedgies, fursepig and urchins.
The collective noun for a group of hedgehogs is "array". I like to collect these.
I was torn between images this week...I did a drawing, rather simplistic I'm afraid, and I did find it a tad hard not to make the drawing too "cute"...I have a number of hedgies stamps by Penny Black, and these are all very cute indeed...fortunately these were all too large for me to use.
There are many well drawn images available on Pinterest that I could have "borrowed" by I am always worried about using these in case of copyright issues...but in the end I found this "Grumpy" which appealed, and as I haven't done much in the way of cartoon images during the year, I thought it might be a nice addition to my collection of inchies.
I also had the sound of my friend from the Dales "Loompie" descriptor in my head, so "Groompy Loompy" it is!
Di