The stories are as follows:—
1. Faust meets a peasant who has lost his horse, and tells him that he has just seen a man riding away on it. The peasant hurries after the supposed thief and there is a gory fight, until he notices that the other man’s horse is a stallion, whereas his own was a gelding.
2. Faust meets a priest in Cologne hastening to church with his breviary in his hand, and turns the sacred book into a pack of cards.
3. Faust enters an inn, where he is refused entertainment, as there is no food in the house. He taps the window with his finger, and says “Bring what you have”; then putting his hand outside the window, he draws in a large dish full of boiled pike and a large can of good Rhine wine.
4. A castle in which Faust is living is besieged by the Spanish troops of the Emperor Charles. He shoots fragments from a tree under which a Spanish colonel is sitting, although the latter is not visible from the castle, and catches the Spanish cannon-balls in his hands.
5. Faust swallows a servant in an inn, because he fills the glasses too full, and washes the morsel down with a bucket of water. The servant is afterwards discovered in the yard all wet and dripping.
6. Faust cuts off a man’s head in an inn, but is prevented from setting it on again by the mysterious influence of one of the spectators; so he causes a lily to grow on the table, from which he slices off the head, and immediately one of the spectators falls decapitated from his seat. Faust then sets the first man’s head on his shoulders again.
7. Faust invites some gentlemen to dinner, but when they arrive they find the table empty. Their host bids his spirit fetch food from a neighbouring wedding-party, and after the feast the guests ask him to show them one of his tricks. He causes a vine to grow on the table, with grapes for each of his guests, and tells each one to pick his own fruit with one hand and put his knife to the stalk with the other, but to be very careful not to cut. He then leaves the room, and when he returns they are all grasping their own noses with one hand and holding their knives in dangerous proximity with the other.
8. Faust teaches a chaplain how to remove his beard with arsenic.
The edition of 1589 is important, because it contains the six extra “Erfurt Chapters,” which were most probably based on local tradition in that town. Faust is seen here as a lecturer at the University. The following is a summary of these extra chapters:—