The Hare and the Hedgehog (Grimm)
Short summary
One Sunday morning, a hedgehog decided to check on his turnips while his wife washed the children.
Near the field, he met a hare who mocked his crooked legs.
Angered, the hedgehog challenged him to a race for a golden louis-d'or and a bottle of brandy. The hedgehog went home and brought his wife, who looked exactly like him. He positioned her at one end of the field while he stayed at the starting point. When the race began, the hedgehog only ran three steps and hid. As the hare reached the finish, the hedgehog's wife called out "I am here already!" The confused hare demanded a rematch. They repeated this trick seventy-three times.
At the seventy-fourth time... the hare could no longer reach the end. In the middle of the field he fell to the ground, blood streamed... and he lay dead.
The hedgehog won the wager and went home with his wife in delight.
Detailed summary
Division into sections is editorial.
The hedgehogs morning walk and the hares insult
On a beautiful Sunday morning during harvest time, when the buckwheat was in bloom and the sun shone brightly, a hedgehog stood by his door enjoying the morning breeze and singing a little song to himself. While his wife was washing and drying their children, he decided to take a walk to the field to check on his turnips, which grew close beside his house and which his family regularly ate.
As he rounded the sloe-bush outside the field, the hedgehog encountered a hare who had come out on similar business to visit his cabbages. The hedgehog greeted the hare with a friendly good morning, but the hare, who considered himself a distinguished gentleman and was frightfully haughty, did not return the greeting.
How do you happen to be running about here in the field so early in the morning?... It seems to me that you might use your legs for a better purpose.
This answer made the hedgehog furiously angry, for he can bear anything but an attack on his legs, just because they are crooked by nature.
A clever plan with the hedgehogs wife
Enraged by the insult to his legs, the hedgehog challenged the hare to a race, wagering a golden louis-d'or and a bottle of brandy. The hare, amused by what he considered a ridiculous proposition from a creature with such short legs, accepted the wager. The hedgehog asked for half an hour to go home for breakfast before the race began.
The hare relies on his long legs, but I will contrive to get the better of him. He may be a great man, but he is a very silly fellow, and he shall pay.
At home, the hedgehog told his wife about the wager and insisted she accompany him to the field, despite her protests about his sanity. He explained his clever plan: they would use the long field as their racecourse, with the hare running in one furrow and the hedgehog in another.
When the hare arrives at the end of the furrow... thou must cry out to him, 'I am here already!' ...for the hedgehog's wife looked just like her husband.
The hedgehog positioned his wife at the bottom of the field while he walked to the top where the hare waited.
The race, the hares death, and the moral
When the race began, the hare shot off like a whirlwind down the field while the hedgehog ran only about three paces before stopping and staying quietly in his furrow. When the hare reached the bottom of the field at full speed, the hedgehog's wife met him with the cry that she was already there. The hare was shocked and wondered greatly, thinking it was the hedgehog himself calling to him since the wife looked identical to her husband.
The hare was shocked and wondered not a little... That has not been done fairly... It must be run again, let us have it again.
The hare demanded they run again, racing back to the top where the hedgehog himself cried out that he was already there. Beside himself with anger, the hare insisted on running again and again. The hedgehog agreed, saying they could run as often as the hare chose.
So the hare ran seventy-three times more... every time... either the hedgehog or his wife said, 'I am here already.'
At the seventy-fourth attempt, the hare could no longer reach the end. In the middle of the field, he fell to the ground with blood streaming from his mouth and lay dead on the spot. The hedgehog took his winnings - the louis-d'or and bottle of brandy - called his wife from the furrow, and both went home together in great delight.
This was how the hedgehog made the hare run races with him on the Buxtehuder heath until he died, and since that time no hare had ever had any desire to run races with a Buxtehuder hedgehog. The story taught two important lessons:
No one, however great he may be, should permit himself to jest at anyone beneath him, even if he be only a hedgehog.
Secondly, it taught that when marrying, one should choose a spouse from one's own position who looks just as oneself looks.