From House Of Commons Hansard: November 10th 2015 - The History Of The Hedgehog

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The House of Commons debate hedgehogs

 

Link: The Browser - The History Of The Hedgehog

 

Multa novit vulpes, verum echinus unum magnum, Madam Deputy Speaker.

 

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

 

I believe that this is the first time that Parliament has discussed hedgehogs since 1566, when the subject was famously raised in relation to the attribution of a bounty of tuppence for the collection of the hedgehog throughout the United Kingdom.

 

The hedgehog has undergone an extraordinary evolution. The year 1566 seems very recent, but the hedgehog was around before then. It was around before this Parliament. The hedgehog, and its ancestor, narrowly missed being crushed under the foot of Tyrannosaurus rex. The hedgehog was around long before the human species: it existed 56 million years ago. It tells us a great deal about British civilisation that my hon. Friend has raised the subject, because the hedgehog is a magical creature. It is a creature that appears on cylinder seals in Sumeria, bent backwards on the prows of Egyptian ships. The hedgehog has of course a famous medicinal quality taken by the Romany people for baldness and it represents a symbol of the resurrection found throughout Christian Europe...