How about Owen's defence:  1.e4 e6 2.d4 b6!? 

There's almost no books on it, and if you know your way around sicilian and french middlegames, you should probably be able to 'play it with your hands'...

White will most likely choose one of the obvious take the centre set-ups, so after practicing it awhile as black you'll build your own theory while white will often start from scratch.

Guidedbyvoices & Willempie: but you would for sure not recommend to somebody who has a complete Sicilian repertoire and done not bad with it, to change it to the Scandi, would you?

ok topnotch best of luck with 1..a6, the lion, and the hippo. i had presumed that the original poster was referring to sensible (robust) defences to 1e4.  none of the defences you have proposed are robust, in the sense that the higher you climb on the chess ladder the more work will be needed just to achieve playability  on the black side of them. sure Schmaltz plays the lion, but not too many other top level gms do. for a player starting out and wanting a solid, mainstream defence to 1e4 that involves learning a minimum amount of theory then they probly wont go far wrong with the scandinavian (incidentally i dont currently play the scandi myself but just think that objectively in terms of the amount of theory that needs to be learnt it makes sense. black is dictates how the play goes just as much as white does)

The difference with the french Rubinstein and the scandi is that you can basically upgrade as you go along. You can first set something up against Nd2 and then later turn to Nc3.

Btw I never studied much theory on the french (I probably get into trouble against a booked up whitey, though I switch often) and always got ok games, while with white I love nothing more than for black to play a scandi esp with Qxd5

well maybe its a matter of taste willempie but personally if playing a booked up player and without knowing much theory i would rather play the black side of a scandinavian than a rubinstein french especially if its your main defence to 1e4. the rubinstein becomes a bit predictable, at least in the scandinavian black can switch between 2..Qxd5 and 2..Nf6.

I disagree. If you play the lazy french also called the Rubinstein, you only get confronted with the advance, exchange and some sort of KIA, all of which are easy to play as black even without real theory. Advantage is that you get top play different types of positions without being in danger and you can easily expand your theory if you want more. That is the disadvantage of any scandi variation. There is no real way to vary your systems later on without switching everything.

The Scandanavian................simple? 

Thats a very interesting description. Simple as compared to what though.

Truth is, any opening is simple once your opponent does not know or play testing lines. If your opponent is well informed then the Scandanavian is anything but simple, it is in fact highly theoretical.

If as the post implies, you are looking for the least theory, then scroll right back up to my initial post. Its either that or the Hippo.

Those are your options.

I wouldn't put you wrong. Honest 

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Just a small remark : it depends on how it fits into your repertoire too. I used to play the Scandivian (2. .... Qd5:) ten years ago against 1. e4, and the 'universal' King's Indian against all the rest. But then I ran into 1. d4, Nf6 2. Nc3