They are also for eating -- or they used to be. Here's a traditional medieval English recipe:

According to medieval experts: "Hedgehog should have its throat cut, be singed and gutted, then trussed like a pullet, then pressed in a towel until very dry; and then roast it and eat with cameline sauce, or in pastry with wild duck sauce. Note that if the hedgehog refuses to unroll, put it in hot water." This is, however, a dish based on traditional methods of cooking meat going back to prehistoric times.

Ingredients:

2-2.5kg joint of meat (or leg of lamb)

Sufficient long grass to cover the meat

Method:

Season the meat. Wrap it in long grass, first lengthways and then tying more grass crossways to secure the green wrapping in place. Prepare your barbecue and place a large pot filled with water on it. Cook the meat for about two hours. Once the meat has cooked, remove the grass then place the meat back in the barbecue to sear. Then carve and serve. (Nettle pudding can be boiled in the same pot and served as an accompaniment.)

Recipes for an elderberry-anchovy souffle-sort of thing; nettle pudding; stew made with sheep's stomach and the hearts and lungs of cows and lambs; and, more innocuously, a mess of pottage, are included in the article, and are well worth reading, if not actually worth cooking up.

The article also answers the immortal question posed in Monty Python's Life of Brian: "What have the Romans ever done for us?" To the long list adduced in that film, one must add that they figured out how to use beaten eggs to make cakes, custards, and breads.

Via Cliopatria.