MD5 listing format

[David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk>]

I was taken by surprise by the following output from md5sum:

$ ls -Glg special/
total 8
-rw-r--r-- 1 144 Oct 24  2014 'C:\nppdf32Log\debuglog.txt'
-rw-r--r-- 1 144 Oct 24  2014  same-contents
$ echo special/*
special/C:\nppdf32Log\debuglog.txt special/same-contents
$ md5sum special/*
\adfc1d2f1b1d6c7fcaa51e857c1a6f68  special/C:\\nppdf32Log\\debuglog.txt
adfc1d2f1b1d6c7fcaa51e857c1a6f68  special/same-contents
$ md5sum special/* | hex
00000000  5c 61 64 66 63 31 64 32  66 31 62 31 64 36 63 37  |\adfc1d2f1b1d6c7|
00000010  66 63 61 61 35 31 65 38  35 37 63 31 61 36 66 36  |fcaa51e857c1a6f6|
00000020  38 20 20 73 70 65 63 69  61 6c 2f 43 3a 5c 5c 6e  |8  special/C:\\n|
00000030  70 70 64 66 33 32 4c 6f  67 5c 5c 64 65 62 75 67  |ppdf32Log\\debug|
00000040  6c 6f 67 2e 74 78 74 0a  61 64 66 63 31 64 32 66  |log.txt.adfc1d2f|
00000050  31 62 31 64 36 63 37 66  63 61 61 35 31 65 38 35  |1b1d6c7fcaa51e85|
00000060  37 63 31 61 36 66 36 38  20 20 73 70 65 63 69 61  |7c1a6f68  specia|
00000070  6c 2f 73 61 6d 65 2d 63  6f 6e 74 65 6e 74 73 0a  |l/same-contents.|
00000080
$ 

I don't understand why it pollutes the first field in its output.
I would have thought it sufficient to mangle the filename if it
feels it has to (echo doesn't bother).

Cheers,
David.