[14]. Adventure the 24th, pp. 38–39.
[15]. This should be M.CCC. & L.
[16]. Error oeuues for oeuures.
APPENDIX B.
The historical Eulenspiegel and his gravestone.
It is scarcely necessary to enter upon the question of the historical Eulenspiegel. That there was such a person seems unquestionable. The names of his parents were Saxon names, not unfrequent, and the name of Ulenspiegel appears as early as 1337, being the name of a widow living at Brunswick, and again in 1473, in conjunction with another name. The widow Ulenspeygel has even been supposed to be the mother of our hero. But what little is known of him, is more easily to be read in the book itself than gathered from other records.
Among the objects of interest which remain to the present time, a testimony of the real existence of Eulenspiegel, is the gravestone at Möllen, the place assigned to him as his last resting-place, both by historical tradition and in the folk-book. Caspar Abel, who in 1729–32 published a collection of old German chronicles, gives one which he describes as having been the property of the family of Hetling, at Halberstadt, and which seems to have been written about 1486. In this chronicle, mention is made under the year 1350 of the ravages of the Black Death at Braunschweig, and it continues: “Thereof died Ulenspeygel at Möllen, among the Gheyseler brethren” (“Dosulffest sterff Ulenspeygel to Möllen unde de Gheyseler Broder kemen an”). Yet it is necessary to remark, that this statement, later than the first presumed edition of 1486—of which little is known—is not supported by any other Saxon chronicle of the fifteenth century. The next reference to the grave at Möllen, is in Reimar Rock’s Lübscher Chronik, in the following jest concerning the Cardinal Raymond; being the original hint, indeed, which I have amplified in the present book, in adventure the hundredth and tenth: “The Cardinal abode in the first night at Möllen. And when he comprehended the German speech, and heard of the holy-living saint Ulenspegel, an if there had been money in store—after which do all Italians and Spaniards thirst—Ulenspegel could have been entered on the Pope his calendar.” This jest, as Dr. Lappenberg well notices, is at any rate a proof, that at this time the grave was often sought out by visitors. Michael Heberer, in his voyage to Sweden and Denmark, in 1592, describes the gravestone, but not in the way depicted in our cut. He makes no mention of the figure, but only of the owl and glass; and the same description occurs in Merian (Topographie von Nieder Sachsen) as being there in 1614. But in 1631, in the manuscript Chronicles of Dethlev Dreyer, a description of the stone, nearly as it now stands, is given; but a basket of owls is mentioned, so it could scarcely be the same. Dreyer and Zeiller (Reiszbuch durch Hoch und Nieder Teutschland, 1674), both speak of the gravestone having been renewed and fenced off from the attacks of boys, and other wilful destroyers of antiquities. But the most interesting account is given by Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, who visited Möllen in the year 1710, and I shall, therefore, offer a translation of it:—
“We first,” says the writer, “examined at the church, which stands upon a slight hill, just by where one goeth up by steps into the churchyard, near the door, the little hut in which the gravestone of Eulenspiegel is set up and leans against the wall of the church. Formerly it had lain in the churchyard not far from the church, under the elm tree, which still stands in its place, but as by bad boys it was often damaged and went hard to be destroyed by rain and weather, a most worthy and benevolent magistrate of this town, a long time ago, had it placed against the wall of the church, and a small house erected round about it, and closed in, with only an open window, or hole, in front. The stone is more than four ells high, and only about one broad. There is not alone an owl and glass sculptured on the two sides, as Merian or Zeiller says in Topog. Sax. infer. p. 184, but the noble [vornehmes] likeness of Eulenspiegel is upon it in the size of life, although not quite equal to his stature and tallness, and the above-named things are in his hands. That he wears bells, may not arise from the fact that he plays the part of a wise fool or a jesting knave [Schalksknecht], but that in those times the bells were greatly in the fashion, and even worn by great lords (as see in Observat. Hallens. ad rem liter. spectant. Germanicas concerning Schellen-Moritz). The inscription on the lower part of the stone, is somewhat damaged by rain and carelessness; so that it is somewhat difficult to be read by those who know it not. In the wood of the hut very many Owlglasses [Eulenspiegels, used in the sense of rogues] have cut their names.”
The expression, that the figure was the size of life, but not quite equal to the stature and tallness of Eulenspiegel, cannot be otherwise understood than that the figure was not entirely cut in the stone, but perhaps only to the knee. It would seem, however, that the figure was repeatedly replaced, for the one now existing differs from the account given by Uffenbach. It stands upright at the wall of the tower, with a wooden shed round it, the lower part of which hides the inscription. Other relics of this apostle of knavery are mentioned by Uffenbach, such as an old shirt of mail, preserved in the council chamber at Möllen. His sword, beaker, and money-pouch, all of a later period, are also shown. With the beaker, a very narrow and deep one, a sorry joke is connected, that he had it so made because his mother bade him never to dip his nose too deep in a glass.
In respect of the gravestone, it is yet to be mentioned, that in a little descriptive work which appeared some years ago, the figure is attributed to a certain knight, Tilodictus Ulenspegel, who, in Westphalian annals of the fourteenth century, is not unknown. Yet for the sake of romance, and also from historical probability, it is best to adhere to the story which remains to us. The inscription on the stone is as follows:—