An adventure by which Bakâla becomes possessed of a sack of incense, obtains him a gift from the Almighty (who, as in the ancient miracle-plays, is brought into the story) of a marvellous bagpipe, which causes every one to dance. When a shepherd the sheep dance; and his master, who is watching him, is obliged to dance also; and afterwards his master’s wife dances herself to death. Other mischief Bakâla also contrives to do. After cutting the tails of his master’s dogs off, and killing the youngest child by washing it and hanging it up to dry, the master resolves to depart; for he is bound by a treaty to Bakâla. But Bakâla gets into the sack, which the master prepares to carry books in, and is discovered at last. Then the master and his son conspire to drown Bakâla; but he overhears them, and the son gets drowned instead. Bakâla appears here to be analogous to the Old Man of the Sea, of whom Sindbad cannot rid himself. At last the contract between them, to the effect that either on breaking it should forfeit a long strip of skin in the back, has to be completed by Bakâla on the body of his master, who has broken it by the attempt to drown his servant. And as the master’s back is sore, he takes the book-wallet and departs. This story, as our authority, Schott, says (Walachische Mährchen, p. 362), reminds us of the agreement between Apollo and Marsyas. Then he sets a bride free from a disagreeable bridegroom by a stratagem, and after acting the bride’s part himself, escapes.
The last story in the series is worthy of translation entire, therefore here it is:—
“How Bakâla findeth a fellow, and thereafter is not any other news heard of him.—After that Bakâla had in such wise departed from the bridegroom, he gat, whence I know not, a sack filled with sawdust. No longtime had he journeyed, when he encountered by the way another man, who likewise bare a sack. Then did they greet each other, and after awhile proposed that they should change sacks. And so did they; then they hasted to open the sacks, and in that which Bakâla had received lay nought but flint stones, and what the other received that do we know. For a time they looked upon their prizes with great wonder; but thereupon laughed hugely. ‘Truly,’ quoth Bakâla, ‘we have beguiled each other!’ ‘That is truth indeed!’ cried the other. And great content had these twain one of the other, and embraced thereupon, and made agreement that thereafter would they journey everywhere in company. From that time hath no more been heard of Bakâla.”
Schott, in his work, finds analogy between the various adventures of Bakâla, and the course of the sun through the months of the year; but it is foreign to our present purpose to enter upon such a speculation. Yet, as a curious exemplification of the love of trickery to be found among all races, this Wallachian Owlglass is worthy of mention.
APPENDIX F.
Works akin to the Eulenspiegel literature.
Although the Eulenspiegel folk-book has become the best known of the special class of books in which the middle age took such pleasure, there are many other compositions of a kindred nature worthy of mention, and of these I shall here describe the most important. The first on which any remark is necessary is the celebrated legend of Salomon and Marcolphus, which, in Latin, German, Anglo-Saxon, and French, has survived to the present time. Marcolphus is a jester in a more sober sense than is Owlglass; the jests of the former, though some of them are analogous to those of the latter, rarely touch upon the humourous. They are capable of application to far more serious things, to matters of speculative philosophy and science. Luther, for instance, applied a story of Marcolphus in reproof of persons who shut their eyes to the good, but afterwards were compelled, whether they would or no, to behold the evil.[[29]] But the Marcolphus legend is an exemplification rather of the combats of wit and wisdom common to the earlier part of the middle age, than a vivid reflex, as is the Owlglass, of the manners and customs of the time to which it belongs. One story borrowed from the Marcolphus, or from Morlini, at an early period, appears in Owlglass, being the second adventure in this edition, p. 3.
The Narrenschiff (“Ship of Fools”) of Sebastian Brandt was published in 1494. It is also called the Welt Spiegel, or “World Mirror,” and it enjoyed a great and deserved reputation in its time, but was far too pedantic and tiresome to survive to the present age, or be profitable now. A few remarks upon it, extracted from Hallam, will be found in the Preface.
Murner himself published a satirical work in 1517, entitled the Schelmenzunft (“Corporation of Knaves”), but from a want of entirety it has fallen into little repute. So also the Gäuchmatt has been forgotten, while Owlglass, published in the same year (1519), will live a companion to many.
Similar books had preceded Master Owlglass, but not with the same success, although from them the frequent editors of the latter abstracted stories to add to the deeds of the wandering knave; from the legend of the “Priest Amis,” for instance, Murner took the story of the invisible picture, the reading ass, the wise university examination at Prague, and the history of the pardoner with the holy head of Saint Brandonus. Another work, the “Priest of Kalenberg,” preceded Owlglass, having appeared before the year 1494 at Vienna, being written by Villip Frankfurter; the only copy known is preserved in the Hamburg Town Library. The “Priest of Kalenberg” is mentioned by Sebastian Brandt in the “Ship of Fools;” and Murner, in his Narrenbeschwerung, tells a story concerning him. The book is alluded to by Fischart in the preface to his Eulenspiegel, as having been a great success. The latest edition of the “Priest of Kalenberg” appeared under the title of Der geistliche Eulenspiegel, oder der Pfarrer vom Kalenberg, nebst Schwänken einiger anderen lustigen Gesellen (“The Clerical Eulenspiegel, or the Parson of Kalenberg, with the quips of some other merry fellows”). Leipzig, 1818.
Another book which supplied the editors of Eulenspiegel with materials for its extension was the Jests of Gonella, Court Fool to the Margrave Nicolaus of Este (†1441), and to his son Borso, the Duke of Ferrara (†1471); indeed, it is far from unlikely that Murner himself was acquainted with it, as it was published in 1506 at Bologna. So rare is this work, that in an appendix Dr. Lappenberg has reprinted it.