The merchant then looked in front and saw that near his feet was a little hedgehog, and to him he directed then his word and speech. “Well, if thou wilt lead me out, I will give thee my best daughter and three sacks of coin; the first will be gold, the second silver, and the third copper.”
The hedgehog went on ahead, the merchant walked after. Soon they came out of the great wild wood. Then the hedgehog went back, and the merchant turned his wagon-tongue homeward.
Now the king went to hunt,—went in the same way as the merchant; and he too was lost in the great wild wood. The king went to the right and the left, tried in every way to free himself; all he gained was that he came to a thicker and a darker place. He too stumbled around five days in the thick wood, without food or drink. On the sixth morning the king cried out: “Oh, my God! if any one would free me from this dense wood, even if a worm, I would give him the most beautiful of my daughters, and as a wedding gift three coaches full of coin.”
“I’ll lead thee out right away,” said some one near him.
The king looked to the right, to the left, but saw not a soul.
“Why stare around? Look at thy feet; here I am.”
The king then looked at his feet and saw a little hedgehog stretched out, and said to him: “Well, hedgehog, if thou wilt lead me forth, I’ll give thee the fairest of my daughters and three coaches full of coin,—the first gold, the second silver, the third copper.”
The hedgehog went ahead, the king followed, and in this way they soon came out of the great wild wood. The hedgehog went back to his own place; the king reached home in safety.
Very well, a poor man went out for dry branches. He went like the merchant and king, and he got astray, so that he wandered dry and hungry for five days in the great wild wood; and whether he turned to the right or the left he gained only this, that he went deeper into the denseness.
“My God,” cried the poor man at last, “send me a liberator! If he would lead me out of this place, as I have neither gold nor silver, I would take him as a son, and care for him as my own child.”