Urcheon

Description: Small mammal that walks on four legs. Nocturnal. Colors range from black to white spines with grey to brown to white underfur.
Height: 30mm
Length: 150mm-330mm (average 230mm)
Tail: 10-20mm
Hindpaw: 2-3mm
Weight: 2kg
Sign: Spore is less than 1/2" in diameter. Tracks are five-clawed feet with a deep sole and heel impression. Tracks cluster equidistant fore feet from handfeed in a cantering habit.
Breeding: April-September, 4-5 young born alive. They can live up to 10 years, average life expectancy is 2-3 years. Hibernation Savor through Nolus, with occasional wakefulness.
Range: 1-2km
Habitat: Woodland edges, hedgerows and suburban habitats.

An Urcheon has a round body covered with stiff spines on their top, and coarse hair on their undersides.They are usually brown to yellow in color. When frightened they roll themselves into a tight ball, with their spines pointing outward; making it almost invulnerable to any predator. They have small, cupped ears that fold down when they roll into a ball.

Their very name describes their preferred living space - in the hedgerows between houses and fields. They eat small animals including worms, insects, frogs, mice and even poisonous snakes; to which they appear to be immune. A Urcheon will bite a snake and then roll into a ball as the snake strikes. It will repeat this procedure until the snake is dead.

Urcheons sleep in the abandoned burrows of other animals or a shallow depression. They will occasionally pile grass and other debris atop rocks to create a nest. They then pack the debris down, creating a waterproof hollow in which they can rest comfortably through inclement weather.

They are solitary, only appearing in pairs during the mating season. While fighting seems to be rare, they do actively avoid each others ranges when they can. The female rases her young alone after a loud courtship. The average litter is 4-6 young after a 36 day pregnancy. The young are born into the same nest the mother uses for hibernation.

At four weeks of age the mother will teach the young to forage for their own food. At eight weeks the young leave the nest to head out on their own.

They hibernate from Savor through Nolus, awaking occasionally during warmer days to find food. In hibernation the body temperature falls very low, and they may look dead as they breath only once every few minutes. A Urcheon will not attack anything larger than another Urcheon, and it will even do that reluctantly. Instead they curl up into little prickly balls if they do not believe they can flee the danger. These creatures can, and do make noise - especially when eating or mating, but they rarely vocalize around large prey.

Myth And Lore

Apple orchards are the best place to find Urcheons for it is well known that a Urcheon will climb an apple tree, knock the fruit down and then roll upon the apples; thereby impaling them on their spines so they could carry them off to their burrows. They are the primary reason for finding windfall in times of calm, for the beasts often knock down far more apples than they can casually carry back to their burrows.

Urcheons can steal milk from both cows, sheep and goats. They can jump, and cling to the teat, sucking all the while. They do this while the cow, sheep or goat are asleep and their slight weight does not wake the cow. In the morning, should your cow be without milk but otherwise hale, examine her teats. If they are flattened, you know you have a Urcheon problem. It is for this reason that Rethem has placed a bounty of 1 farthing for each Urcheon returned to the manor lord.

The tribal nations of Hârn know the Urcheon as the "graineeogs", ugly ones, or witches in animal form. They have many stories of how a witch can transform himself into a Urcheon, roll itself into a ball and then roll away at great speeds. It is often assumed a witch transformed themselves into a Urcheon to flee captivity in the night.

Azeryans believe them to be accomplished egg thieves, and a bounty of 2 pennies has been placed on the head of any Urcheon caught, alive or dead.

The Urcheon is so small it can sneak into a chicken coop without waking hen or rooster. It then flips itself over and slides under the hen. Its softer belly fur is just stiff enough to be like straw and thus the hen sleeps on. The beast then uses its claws to latch onto the egg and pull it slowly back out. It will then suck the egg through the holes its claws have made through the shell. A Urcheon can eat 3-4 eggs a night.

Cooking Lore

The most common method for cooking Urcheon is to roll them in clay, bake them in a fire and then remove the hardened clay, taking the spines with it. At one time, it was believed that eating Urcheons would cure the sick of all sorts of ailments including leprosy, colic, boils, stones and poor vision.

...the flesh of the Urcheon is wholesome for the stomach and strengthens the same. Likewise it hath a power of drying and relieving the stomach. It deals with the water of dropsy and is of great help to such as are inclined to the sickness called elephantiasis.

An Urcheon is, at best, a poor man's meal due to its size. Less savory than rabbit and tougher, only a peasant would eat urcheon regularly. In Kaldor, the Urcheon is considered a local delicacy and they can be sold whole for a higher price there (5d) than in any other kingdom (1f-1d) on the island of Hârn. On Lythia the Urcheon is believed to be poisonous by most, and only worth hunting for its bounty.

Urcheon Tracks


Common Names

"Spike Pig", "Prickly Ball", "Peppered Ball", "Comb-Kin", "Hedge Hog"
Note: There is only one type of Urcheon on the island of Hârn and the mainland, although many assume the different colors are each different species.

Hunting Urcheons

Because of the Urcheon's ability to roll itself into a ball when attacked, dogs are not the recommended method of hunting this beast. They can be trapped with far less trauma to the huntsmen or their dogs.

A noose trap is the preferred method, leaving food just beyond the noose so the Urcheon must walk into the trap to get the food.

Pits must be quite deep and sheer to trap a Urcheon as they are very good climbers. But they are so small, it hardly seems worth the effort.

The meat of a Urcheon is tasty and usually tender. They are excellent in stews or smoked. Since the beast is almost entirely meat, one or two Urcheons will make a man a fine meal.

Urcheon Recipe

Take fat spike pig. Pyke it clene; grynde it smal. Grynde chese & do therto with sugur & gode powdours. Make a coffyn of an ynche depe, and do this fars therin. Make a thynne foile of gode past & cerue out theroff small poyntes, frye hem & put hem in the fars, & bake it vp &c.


The Story Of The Fox & The Urcheon

A fox meeting a Urcheon asked him, "How many wits have you?" And he replied, "Only three. But how many have you?" "I," boasted the fox," have seventy-seven."

As they were talking and walking along, not noticing where they were going, they fell into a deep hole which the peasants had dug. The fox asked the Urcheon to save him.

The Urcheon said, "I have only three wits. Perhaps you will save me first, then I will see about you afterwards," and he asked the fox to pitch him out of the hole. The fox did so, and then asked the Urcheon whether he could help him.

The Urcheon said, "I cannot help you with three, if you cannot help yourself with seventy-seven." And so the fox was caught in the morning by the peasants and killed.

References

This page was last updated on April 27, 2005
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