[5][6] The tale follows the events in the life of a diminutive half-hedgehog, half-human being named Hans, who eventually sheds his animal skin and turns wholly human after winning a princess.

After eight years, Hans leaves his family riding a shod cockerel (Hahn, 'cock, rooster'; Göckelhahn, 'a (mature) cock')[8] to seek his fortune.

Hans then makes her take off her clothes, pierces her with his prickles until she is bloody all over, and sends her back to the kingdom in disgrace.

[11] Also, according to Swedish folklorist Waldemar Liungman [sv], in type ATU 441 the animal husband may be a hedgehog, a wild boar or a porcupine.

[12] The Grimms' notes state that in these fairy tales, "Hedgehog, porcupine, and pig are here synonymous, like Porc and Porcaril".

[15] This same motif of the burning of false or alternative skins in the attempt to create a single whole can also be found in the Grimm's tale of "The Donkey" (Das Eselein).

[17] Hans is treated as a "monster" in his folktale world, and thus distinguished from Thumbling or Tom Thumb who are merely diminutive humans.

[18] Unlike the other Grimms' tale characters who are portrayed as a fully animal form, Hans is the only half-animal half-human hybrid, thus increasing his overall outlandishness.

[19][20] The fairy tale "cripple" is stereotypically ostracized and shunned by society,[21] but even after he turns "supercripple", i.e., demonstrates "extraordinary abilities" and "overachievement", this does not vindicate him in the eyes of other folk in the story, but rather only exacerbates his "enfreakment", according to Schmiesing.

[23] According to Swedish folklorist Waldemar Liungman [sv] and narrative researcher Ines Köhler-Zülch, tale type ATU 441 is reported in Germany, Baltic Countries, Hungary and among West Slavic[b] and South Slavic[c] peoples (although Liungman mentioned the existence of variants in Sweden, Greece, and Italy).

[24][25] Another version is "Der Lustige Zaunigel" ("The Merry Hedgehog";[19] actually "Porcupine"[d]) collected by Heinrich Pröhle and published in 1854.

[27][13][4][19][e] The Scottish version "The Hedgehurst" recited by Traveller storyteller Duncan Williamson has also been published in book collection.

Seven years later, the little animal marries a human girl, who is advised to sprinkle the hedgehog with holy water, prickle her fingers on three of his quills and let her blood fall on his body.

On the wedding night, the prince's daughter cries, and the hedgehog asks the girl to take a knife and cut open his body.

Time passes, and a man loses his way amongst the pig herd, and the hedgehog helps him through it, gaining a hundred forints as a reward.

The hedgehog returns home to his parents, gives them the reward and lets the herd stay with them, then asks his mother to find him a bride.

The next day, the maiden tells her mother about the hedgehog husband's skin, and she suggests the girl takes it and burns it in a oven.

Years later, when a count becomes lost in the forest, the little hedgehog helps the nobleman in return for the hand of one of his daughters in marriage.

The now human hedgehog son goes back to his parents to introduce his wife, and shows them the loose animal skin as proof of his claims.

He finds work with a local farmer and takes the pigs to graze in the forest and meets a man who lost his way.

The man asks his daughters which will go with the little animal: the eldest says she would rather cut her own throat, the middle one that she rather throw herself in a well, but the youngest agrees to marry him.

[42] In a Slovenian variant from Temljine collected by journalist Andrej Gabršček [sl] with the title Jež ("Hedgehog"), a poor peasant woman has many children.

The hedgehog rides the rooster to the first merchant's house to ask for his daughter, but she refuses her suitor and her father pays him a thousand guilders.

[43] Scholar Monika Kropej published a variant collected by Slovenian author Gašper Križnik [sl] from a source in Blagovica with the title Jež ("Hedgehog"): a beggar brings news every year to the local lord, and this year he predicts the lord and his wife will have a son.

One day, a king loses his way in the forest, and the pigs accost the monarch so much he climbs up a tree to escape from the swines.

During the wedding ceremony, the priest blesses the couple with holy water, and the hedgehog skin falls apart, revealing a handsome youth underneath it.

The next time, he overhears his mother saying that, if he wasn't an animal, he could find a bride, so the hedgehog rides a rooster and goes to a man's house to court his daughters.

[47] In a later revision of the catalogue, professor Bronislava Kerbelyte [lt] renames it as type AT 441, Ežiukas, with 67 variants registered.

[49] They also noted that this Lithuanian tale lacked the usual beginning of the mother's hasty wish and the ending with the prince's disenchantment.

[51] In a Latvian tale translated into German as Das Igelpelzchen and into English as The Porcupine's Little Quill Coat, a poor couple prays to have a son, even if he is a little hedgehog.