This page builds on my essay published in The Year’s Work in Medievalism 33 (2018) titled “Warriors ‘Hedgehogged’ in Arrows: Crusaders, Samurai, and Wolverine in Medieval Chronicles and Popular Culture” (open access!).
The basic thesis is that the image of a living warrior covered in arrows was once relegated to medieval chronicles on the Crusades, but the image has, more recently, found its way into popular culture with the help of comic books, especially Wolverine.
While researching the paper (and since its publication), I have been curating any published example I see of a living warrior depicted as hedgehog full of arrows. This isn’t the trope of surviving an arrow or two to the arm; we’re talking about loads of arrows. Christian and Muslim Chroniclers often evoked a hedgehog or porcupine to describe the image they saw of warriors covered in arrows, but still fighting.
My prediction was that this image would continue to gain proliferation in visual mediums including film, television, commercials, and of course, comic books, especially in medieval and fantasy scenarios where a hero must face arrows.
As I encounter more published images of hedgehogged warriors, I’ll document the examples here. I should also emphasize that these are published images, as there are even more examples created as fan art or by artists sketching on platforms such as Instagram.
This list is organized in descending chronological order, and each year there are more and more examples.
If you know of examples, please let me know and I would be happy to cite your contribution.
