far when the linen burst into flames, and con- | she hurt at seeing her husband in scha vinced the astonished knight that he had sin. piteous plight: but great as was the shoc ned grievously by his behavior to the holy it did not prevent her asking the question man, whose prayers in behalf of his sinful self, and his wife, he, after much entreaty, succeeded in obtaining for "a certain consideration."

nearest her heart: "Well, my dear, what have you done about the money."—" For God's sake!' said the poor man, remembering what he had undergone-" say not word about it; for if you do you will be set

After sundry cheats and contrivances of a similar nature, Pfaff Amis returned to down for as mad as I am, and treated after England, and, as might be expected on his arrival, in what Napoleon was pleased to term the Nation of Shopkeepers," he turned merchant; and, having arrayed himself sumptuously, as merchants in those days were wont to do, took his departure for Constantinople, whence, after playing sundry pranks, one of which, at least, deserves to be recorded, he returned to his native home.

the same fashion." The physician, who now saw clearly how matters stood, took great credit to himself for the wondrous cure he had effected, and generously offered to release his patient, upon his paying him the thirty marks which Amis had promised him that very morning-an offer, which, as he who made it was the physician to the court, the well-fleeced merchant deemed it prudent to accept.

It chanced, when on the look-out for On his arrival in England, Amis appears merchandize, or perhaps, to speak more to have repented him of his misdeeds, and correctly, for prey, that Amis encountered to have returned once more to the goodly a jeweller who had a stock of gems to dis- life he had been wont to lead. He retired pose of, for which he asked a thousand to a monastery, where his conduct was so marks. After much debating, a bargain exemplary that, on the death of the reigning was eventually struck between the parties abbot, he was chosen his successor, and fillfor six hundred; and they sealed the com-ed the duties of the office in a manner most pact-with sundry libations of good wine. worthy of the imitation of the brotherhood, Amis took this opportunity to order his ser- and most serviceable to his own salvation. vants to remove the jewels, but the mer Such is a "picture in little" of the life chant was not so far overpowered by the and adventures of Pfaff Amis, respecting good liquor as to give them up without re- which Gervinus says,-"He can be but ceiving payment for them. After some little capable of distinguishing between joytime, however, he consented to do so, upon ousness and a malicious delight in the misAmis promising to take him to a friend, fortunes of others, who regards all these who would be security for the money. In tricks as strokes of humor. But we see the evening, Amis called on a physician, from the old Reynardine stories, that, among and offered him sixty marks to cure his a rude people, a jest, however cruel, is look"poor father," whom he described as being ed upon as a jest still; and it has been remad; the evidence of it being his charging peatedly noticed by travellers, that wild and Amis with owing him money. The physician promised a speedy and effectual cure; whereupon Amis went for the merchant, who in the belief that he was going to the party who would be answerable for Amis's payments, readily accompanied him to the house of the physician. His conduct in demanding the money due to him corroborated Amis's statement so perfectly, that the doctor instantly shaved his head, and adopted the most vigorous measures to cure him of his supposed madness; while Amis, having promised the doctor thirty marks on the following morning, left the house, and, embarking on board ship, sailed instantly for England.

savage nations find a childish pleasure in
practising deceptions, especially upon stran-
gers;"-hard words, but justly applicable to
many portions of the story of Amis, of whom
be it remembered, that he was but one of
three such priestly Scapins, whose adven-
tures have been handed down to us.
the first only of that triad, of which the Par-
son of Calemberg and Peter Lew are no
unimportant members.

He is

It may surprise the reader, to find so many of the inferior members of the religious communities of the times taking upon themselves characters so utterly at variance with their sacred calling. But so far is this conduct from being unfrequent or extraordinary, Amis not appearing on the following that the practice obtained formerly to such morning, according to promise, the doctor an extent as to call the attention of the church was led to suspect that he had been deceiv- to the best means of remedying it; as is ed. At the request therefore of the mer proved by the fact that one of the statutes chant, his wife was sent for. Much was of the church of Cahors expressly forbids

all ecclesiastics to become jesters, goliards, | market, and seeing a crowd of people gaor buffoons.* thered round an enormous fish, for which

Whether such a person as Amis ever ex- the fisherman asked more than any of them isted is doubtful. For though there is rea- was disposed to give, bethought him, son to believe that the Stricker, in recording his history, has done little more than put into verse the stories that were current at the time, still no historical evidence of his existence has yet been discovered.

Such is not the case with the worthy, whose story we now propose to examinethe Parson of Calemberg.

"I'll buy that fish, if I am able,
For well 'twould grace a prince's table"-
and immediately solicited from his master
the loan of a sum sufficient to enable him

to buy the fish, and which the worthy bur
gher lent readily, on hearing what he in-
tended to do with his purchase.

I'll please myself-for that's my motto; And faith I'll give it to duke Otto."

History is so far from passing over in silence the name of Weigand von Theben to give this facetious son of Holy Church his proper title-that the chronicles contain frequent allusion to him, and to the mad This was, however, more easily said than pranks with which he was wont to delight done. On his going to the residence of the his great patron, Duke Otto the Cheerful. duke, he could not obtain admission until he Not only do Bebelius, Manlius, Rauscher, had promised the door keeper,an equal share and Dionysius Melander refer to him, but of whatsoever present he might receive from he is also, in conjunction with Eulenspiegel, the duke in return. This Weigand readily mentioned in Luther's Commentary on assented to, and when Otto desired him to "Ecclesiasticus." While Fugger again say what reward he should bestow on him, in his Ehrenspiegel des Erzhauses Oester- he begged that he might be ordered a hearreich, having mentioned the celebrated Nied- ty scourging. With this strange request hart Fuchs, as one of the two merry coun- Otto complied unhesitatingly, as soon as he sellors of the jovial duke, proceeds to say learned the cause which induced our hero "The other was Weigand von Theben to make it. The porter was soundly drubcommonly called the Parson of Calemberg bed, and so was Weigand; the latter receivwhose tricks filled a little book, which was ing ample amends in the promise of a living formerly very much read, but is now no -a promise which was no sooner made longer to be met with. The best story than fulfilled: the death of the old parson among them is, that he once took a basket of Calemberg taking place at the very time, full of skulls to the top of a mountain, and and Weigand being immediately appointed emptying it there, exclaimed, as he saw his successor. Weigand's first act, on takthem roll down, each pursuing a different ing possession of his living, was of a piece course, 'So many heads so many opinions! with all that followed it, and well calculaIf they do thus when they are dead, what ted to astonish the natives of Calemberg. would they have done had they been alive!" In consequence of the dilapidated state of Many editions of the little book here refer- the roof, the rain poured into every part of red to are now known to have existed; two the church. Our parson, having exhorted of them it is said, being in prose-but not his congregation to contribute towards its one of those which have been preserved restoration, offered them their choice as to contains the anecdote just related. An which portion of the roof they would repair edition in verse, of the year 1620, is the-that over the altar, or that over the chanone which von der Hagen has reprinted in cel. "Over the altar," said they, laughing the curious collection, the title of which is to themselves, "it is a very small part; let prefixed to the present article, and from the parson roof in the chancel!" But, the which the following particulars have been derived.

A burgher of Vienna, holding a seat in the council, had a student named Weigand von Theben, a shrewd and ready-witted knave, who, following his master one day to

"Item præcipimus, quod Clerici non sint Joculatores, Goliardi, seu Bufones, declarantes, quod si per annum artem illam defamatoriam exercuerint, omni privilegio ecclesiastico sunt nudati, et etiam temporaliter graviori, si moniti non destiterint."-Statuta Eccl. Cadure. apud Mar

ten. Tom. iv. Anecd. Col. 727.

parson, when he found he could stand at the altar, and perform the service under shelter, troubled his head no more about the matter; while his congregation, who wished to keep as dry as their priest, found that they had no other alternative than to repair the rest

of the roof.

We pass over the next and following adventure, that we may give a story from a quaint old English translation of "The Parson of Kalenborow," of which a blackletter fragment is preserved in the curious library of the late Mr. Douce; and which

affords direct proof of that "intimate connex- cannot particularize, but which proved ion between the vernacular writers of Ger- upon trial to have an effect the very reverse many and England" at an early period, of what the poor old man had anticipated. which has been before alluded to in the pa- This was, of course, but little pleasing to ges of this Review.* him, and still less so were the circumstances under which our waggish priest disco"The parson of Kalenborow had wine in vered his episcopal lord in an intrigue with his cellar which was marred, and because he his cellar-woman. His conduct in this would have no loss by it, he practised a while to be rid of it; and caused it to be published affair made the bishop so indignant, that he in many parishes thereabouts, that the parson commanded him to put away his young of Kalenborow, at a day assigned, would fly housekeeper, and supply her place with over the river of Tonowa from the steeple of one forty years old, an injunction with his own church, and this he proclaimed in which he complied, if not to the spirit, at his own parish also; and then he caused two least to the letter, by taking two who were wings of peacock's feathers to be made, and each twenty, which he pronounced to be also he caused his naughty wines to be brought under the church-steeple, whereon he should just the same thing, but far more agreeable. stand for to flee over the river. And he gave The foregoing specimens of the life and the clerk charge of his wine, because he should adventures of this frolicksome parson will sell it well, and dear to the most profit. And furnish a tolerable accurate notion of the when the day was come that the parson should work, and of the humor with which it is fly, many one came thither to see the marvel written. The parts we have given have from far countries: and then the parson went not been selected as the best, but as the upon the steeple, arrayed like an angel ready foremost, portion of the book; and, had our for to fly, and there he flickered oftentimes limits allowed, other stories not less droll,— his wings, but he stood still. In the meanwhile that the people stood so to behold him, such as the parson's being discovered by the sun shone hot, and they had great thirst, the Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria, the wife for the priest did not fly. And he saw that, of his patron Otto, standing beside a brook, and beckoned to them, saying, Ye good peo- in puris naturalibus, washing his linen,ple, my time is not yet come for to fly, but his reception of that princess when she tarry a while and ye shall see what I shall do.' visited him, his converting the twelve And then the people went and drank apace of wooden images of the apostles into firewood, this that they saw there for to sell; and they &c. &c. might have been selected for the drank so long that they could get no more wine for money, and cried out for drink, and reader's amusement. But, we have other made great PREASE. And within a little while works to treat of, and must hasten to their after, the clerk came to the parson, and said, consideration. 'Sir, your wine is all sold and well paid for, though there had been more.' The parson, being very glad of these tidings, began to flicker with his wings again, and called with a loud voice unto the people, saying, Hark! the one hand, it precludes us from particu Hark! Hark! is there any among you all larizing with equal fulness the shifts and that ever saw a man have wings or fly? Then contrivances of their rival, " Peter Lew," or, stepped one forth, and said,Nay, sir, nay.'" Der Andere Kalemberger," as he is The parson answered again, and said, 'Nor styled by his biographer,-on the other, never shall, by my fay; therefore go your renders it unnecessary for us to do so, ways home, every one, and say that ye have seeing that the tricks, jests, and rogueries of drank up the parson of Kalenborow's evil this sportive trio bear so strong a wines, and paid for it well; and truly more than ever it cost him!' Then were the vi- semblance to each other. laynes or paysannes, marvelously angry, and in their language cursed the parson perilously, some with a mischief and vengeance; and some said, 'God give him an hundred DROUSE, for he hath made among us many a fool and toting ape.' But the parson cared not for all their curses. And this subtle deed was spread all the country about."

This and other tricks having come to the ears of his superior, the Bishop of Passau, he was summoned before him. The bishop was nearly blind, and our parson suggested him a remedy, the nature of which we See Foreign Quarterly Review, Vol. XIV. No. XXVIII.

Our notice of the stories of "Pfaff Amis" and "Der Pfarherr vom Kalemberg" has been extended to a length which, while, on

re

་་

Peter Lew was born at Hall, and was of such extraordinary strength as to be enabled to lift from the floor, with outstretched arm, a man in full armor standing in his hand, and to place him on the table,-a feat by which he acquired his name of Lew, or

Lion.

After sundry endeavors to earn a living, now as a tanner's servant, now as an artilleryman in the war against the Armagnacs, Peter resolved to turn priest, and at thirty years of age entered the school at Hall to learn the very rudiments of education. After studying four years, he was made the priest of Reiden. Here he fared very badly;

but being appointed assistant to the parson | On the third evening after this, while the vilof Western, he contrived, by the exercise of lagers were assembled in the spinning-house,

For

a little ingenuity, to live tolerably well,
much against his patron's intention.
when Peter took his meals at home, the
cook had directions to supply the table with
very meagre fare; but to furnish it with
ever thing of the best, when he was at the
bath, or in the city. No sooner did Peter
make this discovery, than he revenged him-
self by drowning the parson's fowls in the
brook, and when they were found, and about
to be thrown away, begging the cook to
dress them or him. But better still, he won
the affections of the cook, who rewarded
him after the fashion most grateful to a man
of his gastronomical abilities.

We pass over the stories of Peter's hanging the peasant's ass for grazing in the churchyard, and of his finding a hot cake under the cloth of the altar, &c. that we may tell how he frightened his parishioners in the garb of a spirit.

and amusing each other by the recital of tales of Berchtold' and the Wild Host,' our mounted on a horse of the same color, rode roguish priest, dressed in a white sheet, and swiftly past the house, blowing loudly on a horn. The company looked out, and saw nothing but his shadow:

"After a while, his horn again

Was heard; the villagers in vain
To see him tried. Until once more,
Blowing still louder than before,
He rode that house so slowly by,
As to be seen by every eye.
The sexton's wife was struck aghast
As the pale spectre glided past,
And to her spouse cried-dreading evil-
'Oh, Lorenz love! sure its the D-1.'"

The poor woman fell ill in consequence;
and Peter turned her alarm to his advan
tage, by saying that, had her son followed
his advice, she would not have been laid
upon a bed of sickness; and cautioning her,
if she did not want to be honored with
another visitation from the spirit, that she
would do wisely to pay him to say masses
for its repose-a hint which, as it may be
supposed, was very readily acted upon.
It forms no part of our present purpose

Every nation has its merry people, who form the butt and laughing-stock of their countrymen. Greece had its Abdera,Hindostan its Sivri-Hissar: England laughs at its "Madmen of Gotham,”* and

"It was St. Martin's day, when the peasants are wont to hold their feast of geese, that the sexton's son came to Peter, saying, My father is sending me into the city to purchase bread and wine; will you go with me, or can I purchase any thing for you!" Peter answering both these questions in the negative, the youth to compare these points of German humor set forth alone; and before he had completed with similar works, the production of our his purchases, the sun had sunk to rest. Peter, fatherland.-to wit, "The King and the who had determined to possess himself by Abbot of Canterbury," printed by Percy, stratagem of the good things purchased for and others of a like character. We shall the sexton, betook himself to the stump of an therefore proceed to another division of old oak tree, standing on a little hillock just these romances, and, quitting the considerawithout the village, and which had been carved into the pedestal for an image; and, tion of individual kuaves, turn our attencrouching down upon it, awaited the arrival tion to collective fools. of the lad. No sooner did the youth reach the spot, than Peter stood up at his full height, clasping his hands, gnashing his teeth, and uttering the most frightful cries. As was to be expected, the boy fled from the supposed emissary of Beelzebub, and left his store of good things a prey to the evil one. As soon as Peter saw that the coast was clear, he carried home his booty, and, emptying the wine, returned with the empty flasks, which he scattered about the scene of his late adventure. So that when the sexton, who accompan. ied his son back to the dreaded spot, found bread and wine both missing, he supposed that the dogs had run away with the first, and that the latter had been spilt in the confusion. The sexton and his son now consulted Peter on the subject, who, though he would not undertake to speak positively till three days were passed, yet declared his belief that the lad had seen a malignant spirit, who would do him some injury, if he did not avert the threatened evil by a suitable offering made to his worshipful self. The sexton, who was but little inclined to part with his money, laughed at the idea, and Peter, renewing his warning of impending danger, left him.

* One of the earliest collections of such stories

in England is to be found in a manuscript of the beginning of the thirteenth century, which is preserved in the Public Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is a satirical Latin poem on the people of Norfolk, to whom it attributes all sorts of stupid actions; as the following extract, for which we are indebted to our accomplished friend, Mr. Thomas Wright, will sufficiently

demonstrate:

"Ad forum ambulant diebus singulis,
Saccum de lolio portant in humeris;
Jumentis, ne noceant bene fatuis,
Ut prælocutus sum, equantur bestiis,

Post forum protinus tabernam adeunt,
Quod bene noscimus, bibunt et rebibunt;
Postquam sunt ebrii, quod loqui nesciunt,
Jumentum scandere cadentes nequeunt.

'Sta,' dicit Rusticus, Fauvel ut consulo, Paulisper sustine dum sursum fuero.' 'Ad centum demones vade continuo,

Germany at the wiseacres of Schilda. For which, on seating himself, he stuck in his hat. the Schildburghers are the Gothamites of After much discussion, one genius, brighter Germany, and their history is one of the than the rest, decided that they could not see most amusing, of the amusing class of books for want of daylight, and that they ought on to which it belongs. the morrow to carry in as much of it as pos The history of the Schildburghers, or the sible. Accordingly the next day, when the "Lalenbuch," for by both these names is sun shone, all the sacks, bags, boxes, baskets, the book called, contains a number of tubs, pans, ect., of the village were filled with stories, which, after being current for years its beams, and then carried into the council. among the people, were collected towards house, and emptied there, but with no good the close of the sixteenth century-(the effect. After this they removed the roof by earliest known edition is that of 1597)--by the advice of a traveller, whom they rewardno unlettered hand into the present work, ed amply for the suggestion. This plan an. which has retained, ever since it first ap swered famously during the summer, but peared, its original popularity. There when the rains of the winter fell, and they have, indeed, been few happier ideas, than were forced to replace the roof they found that of making these simpletons descend the house just as dark as ever. Again they from one of the wise men of Greece; and met, again stuck their torches in their hats, representing them as originally gifted with and again deliberated, but to no purpose; such extraordinary talents, as to be called until, by chance, one of them was quitting to the councils of all the princes of the the house, and groping his way along the earth, to the great detriment of their circumstances, and the still greater dissatisfaction of their wives; and then, upon their being summoned home to arrange their disordered affairs,determining in their wisdom to put on the garb of stupidity, and persevering so long and so steadfastly in their assumed character, as to prove "plain fools at last." No way inferior is the end of this strange tale, which assumes even somewhat of serious interest, when the Schildburghers, after performing every conceivable piece of folly, and receiving the especial privilege of so doing under the seal and signature of the emperor, by the crowning act of their lives turn themselves out of house and home; whereby they are compelled, like the Jews, to become outcasts and wanderers over the face of the earth-by which means it has arisen that there is no spot, however remote, on which some of their descendants, who may be known by their characteristic stupidity, are not to be found.

It is impossible to detail a tenth part of the acts of stupidity gravely attributed to these simpletons; whose first piece of folly was to build a council house without windows.When they entered it, and to use the words of the nursery ballad, "saw they couldn't sce," they were greatly puzzled to account for such a state of things, and having in vain gone outside, and examined the building to find why the inside was dark, they determined to hold a council upon the subject on the foilowing day. At the time appointed they assembled, each bringing with him a torch,

Atque ad domum ne redeas denuo.'

In domo propria sedent ad prandium,
E si quis veniens pulsat ad ostium,
'Non sumus,' dicunt, nunc ad hospitium;
Vade ad demones, veni eras iterum.""

wall, when a ray of light fell through a cre. vice, and upon his beard. Whereupon he suggested, what had never before occurred to any of them, that it was possible they might get daylight in by making a window! We will now give another specimen or two of their peculiar talent :

We

"The Boors of Schilda had built a mill, and with extraordinary labor they had quar ried a millstone for it, out of a quarry which lay on the summit of a high mountain; and when the stone was finished they carried it, with great labor and pain, down the hill. When they had got to the bottom, it occurred to one of them, that they might have spared themselves the trouble of carrying it down, by letting it roll down. Verily,' said he, we are the stupidest of fools, to take these extraordinary pains to do that which we might have done with so little trouble. will carry it up, and then let it roll down the hill by itself, as we did, before, with the trees which we felled for our council-house.' This counsel pleased them all, and with still greater labor they carried the stone to the top of the mountain and were about to roll it down,when one of them said, But how shall we know where it runs to? who will be able to tell us aught about it?' 'Why,' said the bailiff, who had advised the stone's being carried up again, this is very easily managed; one of us must stick in this hole, (for the millstone had of course a great hole in the middle,) and run down with it.' This was agreed to, and one of them, having been chosen for the purpose, thrust his head through the hole and ran down the hill with the millstone.

"Now at the bottom of the mountain was a deep fish-pond, into which the stone rolled, and the simpleton with it, so that the Schildburghers lost both stone and man, and not one among them knew what had become of them. And they felt sadly angered against their old companion who had run down the hill with the stone, for they considered that