Once upon a time, there was a farmer and his wife, who wanted a baby. Mostly it was the farmer's wife who wanted the baby, but the farmer wanted to make his wife happy. Still, after many years of marriage, a baby had yet to appear.
The farmer's wife was getting desperate. She tried all sorts of strange things at the advice of widows and medicine witches - sleeping upside-down, turning circles morning and evening, and making all variety of strange potions, most of which were entirely too terrible to eat the whole pot of, and got tossed into the woods by the farmer when he couldn't stand the smell.
In the woods lived a nest of goblins, who were quite delighted with this consistent tribute of strange brews. They were convinced that these concoctions were gifts especially for them, and in a way, they weren't wrong. So the goblins followed the farmer back to the farm one day, keeping out of sight, to find out what they could do in return for such delicious splatters of goop.
The farmer and his wife were arguing on that day, again.
"Go and hire a widow for company if you want it!" the farmer was snarling.
"I don't want a widow!" his wife pleaded. "I want a baby! To snuggle and carry around and kiss all over!"
"Give it up, woman!" the farmer roared. "The gray's come into both of our hair. There won't be a child!"
"I don't CARE!" the woman shrieked. "I'd love any baby, even one on the doorstep. Fat or small or strange as a hedgehog!"
The yelling continued, but the goblins had heard all they needed to, and wandered off the way they had come. A baby wasn't that difficult of a task, really; not for creatures so accustomed to taking what was unwanted, as at least a certain number of babies in the world are. And many babies are fat and small... but where to get a hedgehog baby?
The goblins mumbled among themselves over dinner that night. A baby hedgehog might be too small, or might not be. Anything could be fat that was fed enough. But the prickles? Wouldn't the prickles hurt a soft-skinned human?
It still took a few weeks to track down an actual baby for the farmer. Messages sent through trees and swamps and pigeons, until one of the appropriate size was found a few towns over. And the nest of goblins went to go and pick him up, and captured a small hedgehog on the way (or, more specifically, sat on and carried along by way of the prickles stuck in rough-spun pants).
Conveniently, this town also had a resident witch, who was familiar enough with her own nest of goblins from all the cauldrons she had emptied at the edge of the back garden, and was thus often blessed with fresh frogs and seasonal mushrooms. So the visiting goblins showed up at the back doorstep with their stolen baby and a captured hedgehog, and asked the witch to make them into one thing, please and thank you.
"What on Earth for?" the witch asked. "Isn't that the baby from the green cottage by the river? Didn't they want him?"
"His older sister sure doesn't want him," one of the goblins explained.
"Wished him right away into the river," another pointed out.
"But we know somebody who wants a whole baby," a third goblin chirped happily.
"Except she wants a hedgehog baby!" the smallest goblin crowed, holding up the hedgehog.
The witch did not quite think that that was correct, but didn't really know enough about the situation to argue too much. Certainly a baby that was going to be wished into the river wasn't safe where he had started.
Still. Spells are complicated, and it's all but necessary to leave a loophole in them if you want to make sure the whole world doesn't turn topsy-turvy. So the witch took the baby and the hedgehog, and enchanted them together into one thing. When she was done, the child was smaller than before, with a strange snout and eyes that were all black, and a head and back covered in quills... but the quills were as soft as a human baby's hair, as soft as feathers, and the strange snout would grow to be able to make words as humans do. And the loophole, as it is best to have, is that the child would spent twenty years as this beast... and after that, and only with unconditional love and acceptance, he would be able to take the coat of quills on or off as he wished.
"There you are," the witch shrugged, popping the strange-looking baby into a basket for the goblins. "I hope your friend is happy."
"Oh, she will be very happy," they assured her. "This is just what she asked for, and he's even soft enough to hold."
So the goblins wandered off again, now with an occupied basket in tow. They kept their charge fairly quiet with snacks, with a vague hope in fattening him up a bit, and got back to the farm quickly and quietly.
The smallest goblin was picked to drop the basket. It was almost too big for her, but she made it in the end... almost. She set the basket on the top of the stairs into the farmer's cottage, but darted away so quickly that it didn't stay there, but slid down a stair and dropped the baby on the flagstone at the bottom. He was fine, just suddenly incredibly loud, wailing in a way somewhere between a human baby and a rodent's death scream.
The goblin ran for cover, and huddled with her nest-mates. They were a bit far away to hear anything besides the faint echo of the baby screaming, but the farmer's wife picked him up, and all three went back inside, and that was that. The goblins went back to their nest in the woods, and were not given any more potions, so left the farmer and his wife alone, their business done.