These two old authors both refer, too, to the belief that the hedgehog had distinct gifts as a wind and weather prophet. Bossewell asserts that “the Urcheon is witty and wise in his knowledge of comming of Winds, North and South, for he changeth his Denne or hole, when he is ware that such windes come;” while Topsell has it that “when they hide themselves in their den they haue a naturall vnderstanding of the turning of the wind. They have two holes in their caue, the one North, the other South, obseruing to stop the mouth against the winde, as the skilful mariner to stiere and turn the rudder and sailes, for which some haue held opinion that they do naturally foreknow the change of weather.” “The hedgehogge hath a sharp quicke thorned garment, That on his backe doth serue him for defence; He can presage the winds incontinent, And hath good knowledge in the difference Between the southerne and the northerne wind. These virtues are allotted him by kind, Whereon in Constantinople, that great city, A merchant in his garden gaue one nourishment; By which he knew that winds true certainty, Because the hedgehog gaue him just presagement.” So at all events declares Chester in his “Love’s Martyr”; and Bodenham in the “Belvedere, or Garden of the Muses,” A.D. 1600, testifies to the same belief in the lines:— “As hedgehogs doe foresee ensuinge stormes, So wise men are for fortune still prepared.” The author of “Poor Robin’s Almanack,” at the much more recent date of 1733, takes what one may consider quite a professional interest in the hedgehog as a weather prophet, and exclaims:— “If by some secret art the hedgehog know, So long before, which way the winds will blow, She has an art which many a person lacks, That thinks himself fit to make almanacks.” A remark that is certainly most true, though for the honour of the craft we should hardly have expected a calendar-maker to admit as much. The medicinal virtues of the hedgehog were held to be very considerable in the days of faith, and some of the preparations were abominably nasty. “The flesh being stale,” says one of these old authorities, “giuen to a madde man cureth him.” Putrid hedgehog fetched out of a ditch and given as food or medicine to a man! The flesh salted, dried, beaten to a powder and then drank in vinegar was held in high repute as a remedy for dropsy, and for “Leprosie, the Crampe, and all sicknesse in the nerves,” and the fat beaten up with honey was deemed an excellent strengthener for a weak voice.