Der ewige Igel

I've been visiting Stefan's mom in Steinebach about once a year for 23 years. Throughout that time, Stefan's mom has been feeding two kinds of animals (not counting the mosquitoes): cats and der Igel ("the hedgehog"). The cats have changed--first there was Maxl, then Döpferl, and now Döpferlkatze--but the hedgehog has remained a constant, always der Igel.

Helen has a large yew tree just outside her front door, next to a flag pole on which flies a banner in Bavarian blue and white, and for as long as I've known her, she has kept two small glass bowls under the tree, into which she puts quality food scraps for der Igel. I have never actually seen der Igel, but the scraps disappear, and Helen replenishes the bowls, so I assume the hedgehog really does exist. He must be a very long-lived hedgehog, to have lasted these 23 years--but of course he's also been very well fed. So well fed, in fact, and for so long, that he has become somewhat of a legend, at least to me: the eternal hedgehog, der ewige Igel.

We spent last week in Steinebach with Helen, and as usual, I did not see der mythical Igel. I still need to blog about that week, but for now I will jump ahead to Prague. For the next few days, we're staying in Černý Vůl, a 40-minute schlepp from the big city. Tonight, after a long day in Prague that ended with a metro ride and then a bus ride and then a brisk walk from the bus stop along a busy road and then down some steps to a shortcut over a bridge and then finally back to our rental cottage, there it was: ein Igel. Not der Igel, of course, since der Igel is presumably wandering around the yew tree and the flag pole in Steinebach, quizzically wondering where the food has gone; but certainly a hedgehog. It's the first hedgehog I've ever seen in the wild (if a hedgehog playing dead on a crumbling concrete sidewalk by a stone wall next to a metal gate outside of Prague constitutes a hedgehog "in the wild").

We'll have a few more days in Steinebach before this trip is over; perhaps, given tonight's auspicious sighting, this year will be the year when I finally see der ewige Igel.

A Czech hedgehog playing dead in the wilds of Černý Vůl