Featured on PDR in the collection Animal Costumes from the 1862 Fairytale Ball of the Jung-München Artist’s Association

This dandyish hare and hedgehog, photographed at an 1862 Munich costume ball by Joseph Albert (1825–1886), seem drawn from timeless folklore. But the characters may have been surprisingly new to these costumed revelers. The fable referenced here, “Der Hase und der Igel”, was recorded in the 1843 fifth edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, less than twenty years prior. The oral tale was first transcribed in the Hannoversche Volksblatt newspaper, after being told to editor Wilhelm Schröder near Bexhövede in Lower Saxony around 1840.