They were going on their way singing, in an open cart drawn by a stout horse of Vuerne-Ambacht, that brought them gambolling by the highways and marshy lands of the duchy of Lunebourg. Among them were some that played the fife, the rebeck, the viol, and the bagpipe with a mighty din. Beside the cart there walked at frequent intervals a dikzak playing on the rommel-pot and going afoot in the hope of melting off some of his great belly.
As they were down to their last florin they saw Ulenspiegel come up to them, laden with chiming coin, and went into an inn and paid for his draught. Ulenspiegel gladly accepted. Seeing the while the Smaedelyke broeders were winking as they looked at him and smiling while they poured out his wine for him, he had wind of some trick, went outside, and posted himself at the door to hear their talk. He heard the dikzak saying of him:
“This is the painter of the landgrave who gave him more than a thousand florins for a picture. Let us feast him full with beer and wine, he will pay us back twofold.”
“Amen,” said the others.
Ulenspiegel went to fasten his ass all saddled a thousand paces away at a farmer’s, gave two patards to a girl to take charge of it, came back into the chamber of the inn and sat down at the Smaedelyke broeders’ table, without uttering a word. They poured out wine for him and paid. Ulenspiegel rattled the landgrave’s florins in his satchel, saying that he had just sold his ass to a countryman for seventeen silver daelders.
They travelled on, eating and drinking, playing the fife, the bagpipe, and rommel-pot, and picking up by the way the goodwives they thought comely. In this way they begot foundling children, and beyond all, Ulenspiegel, whose gossip later bore a son which she named Eulenspiegelken, which signifies, in high German, little mirror and owl, and that because she did not understand clearly the meaning of her casual man’s name, and also perhaps in memory of the hour when the child was made. And this is the Eulenspiegelken wrongly said to have been born at Krittingen, in the land of Saxony.
Drawn by their stout horse they went along a highway at the side of which was a village and an inn with the sign In den ketele: “In the Kettle.” Thence issued a goodly savour of fricassee.
The dikzak who played the rommel-pot went to the baes and said to him, speaking of Ulenspiegel:
“That is the landgrave’s painter; he will pay for all.”
The baes, perusing Ulenspiegel’s appearance, which was excellent, and hearing the chink of florins and daelders, set upon the table wherewith to eat and drink; Ulenspiegel did not shrink from it. And ever and always jingled the crowns in his wallet. Many a time, too, he had stuck his hand on his hat saying it covered his chief treasure. The revels having lasted two days and one night, the Smaedelyke broeders said to Ulenspiegel: