Lyrics
Celotno besedilo pesmi »Uboga, uboga ježeva mati« z angleškim prevodom.
Uboga, uboga ježeva mati, kolko je, kolko je mogla prestati, morala je, morala ježa rodili, pa jo je, pa jo je pikal po riti.
#English translation
Poor, poor hedgehog mother, how much, oh how much she had to endure, she had to, she had to give birth to a hedgehog, and it pricked her, it pricked her, all over her behind.
#Uboga, uboga ježeva mati at a glance
- Country of origin
- 🇸🇮 Slovenia
- Sung in
- Slovenian
- Words by
- Traditional
- First known
- No author or date recorded; printed in a Slovenian kindergarten song collection and recorded on a 2006 CD of Slovenian lullabies
- Best for ages
- 2–7
- Mood
- playful, traditional
- Last updated
- 27 August 2026
Meaning and origin
This is a tiny comic rhyme built on one deadpan joke: pity the poor hedgehog’s mother. It marvels, with exaggerated sympathy, at everything she had to put up with — she had to give birth to a hedgehog, after all, and the spiky little thing pricked her the whole time. The humour comes entirely from taking an obvious fact about hedgehogs (they are covered in prickles) and treating it as a genuine hardship worthy of solemn condolence.
It is the kind of short, silly nonsense verse children love precisely because it is a little bit rude and very absurd. Neither of the sources we retrieved names an author or a date: a Slovenska Bistrica kindergarten prints the words in its song collection, and a version beginning “Uboga je bila ježeva mati” was field-recorded for “Al’ že spiš?”, a 2006 CD of the lullabies Slovenes actually sing, collected in 2005 and 2006 under the ethnomusicologist Katarina Juvančič. That it turns up on a lullaby CD says something about how it is used — as a soothing bit of nonsense at bedtime — but its age is not established. Its whole charm is its brevity: a single ridiculous idea, delivered straight, and gone before it outstays its welcome.
Common questions
- What is this rhyme about?
- A comic show of sympathy for the hedgehog's mother. It marvels at how much she had to endure — she had to give birth to a hedgehog, and it pricked her all the while with its spines. The joke is the absurd, deadpan pity for a mother whose own baby is covered in prickles.
- Is "Uboga, uboga ježeva mati" meant seriously?
- No — it is a piece of nonsense humour. It takes the obvious fact that baby hedgehogs are spiky and turns it into mock-sympathy for the poor mother, which children find very funny.
- Who wrote "Uboga, uboga ježeva mati", and where is it recorded?
- No author is named in either source we retrieved. The text is printed, in exactly the form given here, in a song collection compiled by the Slovenska Bistrica kindergarten, and a version beginning "Uboga je bila ježeva mati" is track 31 of "Al' že spiš? ali Kako uspavamo v Sloveniji", a 2006 CD of lullabies field-recorded across Slovenia in 2005 and 2006 by students under the ethnomusicologist Katarina Juvančič. Neither source dates it, so how old it is remains unknown.
