In Britain the character of Robin Hood is a well-known folklore figure. An equivalent figure in Germany might be Till Eulenspiegel, perhaps best known here from Richard Strauss’s tone poem Till Eulenspiegel’s merry pranks. As with Robin Hood there is fascination around the question of whether he is a fictional character or a real historical person. What we do know is that the earliest version of the Till Eulenspiegel story was published in the early 16th century in German, and this was followed by many editions and translations (see Further reading below for some facsimile editions of early works). The story has continued to be a popular one and this post will feature some different illustrated versions in our collections.
Till is often depicted with an owl and a mirror (as the name literally means owl-mirror). Here are a few more examples (click on each one to see enlarged version):
The original story covers his life from birth to death in 95 tales, set in the early 1300s. He travels widely, mostly throughout Germany but with visits to Prague, Rome and Paris included. He is a jester playing tricks and practical jokes on other people, often exposing hypocrisy along the way and making fun of his employers. Much of the humour in the tales arises because he consistently follows instructions or takes what people say to him very literally, for example in one tale he helps a brewer to make beer but instead of boiling hops he boils the brewer’s dog who happens to be called Hops!
The 16th century version was very scatalogical with Till Eulenspiegel often using excrement to get revenge or to embarrass people. In a quick count at least thirteen of the tales have references to poo in their titles. This aspect of the stories was watered down over time, particularly in versions for children. Paul Oppenheimer (who first translated the 1515 version into English in 1972), in the introduction to his 2001 revised translation, bemoans this treatment:
he has suffered the frustrating indignity, over the last two centuries, of being reduced to infantile proportions as the childish hero of a children’s book. If every German is weaned on Eulenspiegel’s adventures, so to speak, and believes that he knows who Eulenspiegel is, he has probably not read his adventures in their original, highly scatological forms at all, but instead run into one of their numerous bland adaptations… Lately this situation has been changing, perhaps because in the new social climate of Western cultures prudishness itself is readily regarded as an impropriety.
One story deemed suitable for inclusion in collections for children is an early one from Till’s childhood. He has gained a reputation for walking a tightrope over the river but his mother cuts the rope and he falls in, much to the amusement of the watching boys. He then gets his own back on the boys by persuading them to give him one shoe each. They think he is going to show them a trick on the tightrope but he actually throws the shoes to the ground, resulting in them scrabbling around and fighting over the shoes. Here are some depictions of this:
The Floethe illustration above is from an English translation of a significant 19th century reworking of the Till Eulenspiegel story by the Belgian author Charles de Coster. In his La Légende et les Aventures héroïques, joyeuses et glorieuses d’Ulenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak au pays de Flandres et ailleurs (738:4.d.90.114) the hero is Flemish with a sidekick called Lamme Goedzak and the action is set in the 16th century. The work is considered by some to be a Belgian national epic. This too has been issued in illustrated editions; my favourite is the one with woodcuts by Frans Masereel (our copy was donated to the UL by Camille Huysmans who would have been exiled in London at the time before going on to become Belgian prime minister for a brief postwar period):
A rather lovely small edition for children is a 1902 copy with illustrations by Albert Weisgerber (Waddleton.e.7.31). The picture in the middle, showing Till with a ladder poking out of a hole in a roof, accompanies another example of him taking things literally. After irritating a blacksmith he is working for, the blacksmith tells him to “Get up and out of my house” and the picture represents Till’s interpretation of this!
Tijl Uilenspiegel with prints by Jan Rinke (Waddleton.b.5.83) dates from a few years later and is an attractive Dutch colouring book version.
The most recent version of the story we have acquired is a 2015 selection of thirty tales by the Austrian writer Clemens J. Setz (C210.c.6429), beautifully illustrated by Philip Waechter, known as a picture book illustrator. The character of Till Eulenspiegel also appears in Daniel Kehlmann’s 2017 novel Tyll (C205.d.3650) which won the 2018 Friedrich-Hölderlin-Preis and was shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize in its English translation. Kehlmann’s fictional work moves the travels of the hero to the 17th century after the Thirty Years War.
Katharine Dicks
Further reading
- Till Eulenspiegel. Abdruck der Ausgabe vom Jahre 1515 (in 746:03.d.1.9)
- Dyl Ulenspiegel: in Abbildung des Drucks von 1515 (S700:01.b.1.83)
- Till Eulenspiegel: a merye jest. Facsimile reprint of the London, 1528? edition (9900.b.366)
- Von Vlenspiegel eins bauren sun des lands Braunschweick : Erfurt bei Melchior Sachse, 1532 (746:01.c.19.11)
- Ulenspiegel: Antwerpen 1580 : facsimile (751:01.c.17.1)
- Ulenspiegel, de sa vie, de ses œuvres: édition critique du plus ancien Ulespiègle français du XVIe siècle (738:25.c.95.7)
Languages across Borders 