The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel in the land of Flanders and elsewhere — Edition Insights

lenspiegel was born, the son of Claes.

When she had wrapped him in warm swaddling-clothes, Katheline, the midwife, made a careful examination of the infant's head, and found a piece of skin hanging therefrom.

"Born with a caul!" she cried out joyfully. "Born under a lucky star!" But a moment later, noticing a small black mole on the baby's shoulder, she fell into lamentation.

"Alas!" she wept, "it is the black finger-print of the devil!"

"Monsieur Satan," said Claes, "must have risen early this morning, if already he has found time to set his sign upon my son!"

"Be sure, he never went to bed," answered Katheline. "Here is Chanticleer only just awakening the hens!"

And so saying she went out of the room, leaving the baby in the arms of Claes.

Then it was that the dawn came bursting through the clouds of night, and the swallows skimmed chirruping over the fields, while the sun began to show his dazzling face on the horizon. Claes opened the window and thus addressed himself to Ulenspiegel.

"O babe born with a caul, behold! Here is my Lord the Sun who comes to make his salutation to the land of Flanders. Gaze on Him whenever you can; and if ever in after years you come to be in any doubt or difficulty, not knowing what is right to do, ask counsel of Him. He is bright and He is warm. Be sincere as that brightness, and virtuous as that warmth."

"Claes, my good man," said Soetkin, "you are preaching to the deaf. Come, drink, son of mine."

And so saying, the mother offered to her new-born babe a draught from nature's fountain.

While Ulenspiegel nestled close and drank his fill, all the birds in the country-side began to waken.

Claes, who was tying up sticks, regarded his wife as she gave the breast to Ulenspiegel.

"Wife," he said, "hast made good provision of this fine milk?"

"The pitchers are full," she said, "but that doth not suffice for my peace of mind."

"It seems that you are downhearted over your good fortune," said Claes.

"I was thinking," she said, "that there is not so much as a penny piece in that leather bag of ours hanging on the wall."

Claes took hold of the bag and shook it. But in vain. There was no sign of any money. He looked crestfallen. Nevertheless, hoping to comfort his good wife--

"What are you worrying about?" says he. "Have we not in the bin that cake we offered Katheline yesterday? And don't I see a great piece of meat over there that should make good milk for the child for three days at the least? And this tub of butter, is it a ghost-tub? And are they spectres, those apples ranged like flags and banners all in battle order, row after row, in the storeroom? And is there no promise of cool refreshment guarded safe in the paunch of our fine old cask of cuyte de Bruges?"

Soetkin said: "When we take the child to be christened we shall have to give two patards to the priest, and a florin for the feasting."

But at this moment Katheline returned, with a great bundle of herbs in her arms.

"For the child that is born with a caul," she cried. "Angelica that keeps men from luxury; fenel that preserves them from Satan...."

"Have you none of that herb," asked Claes, "which is called florins?"

"Very well," he answered, "I shall go and see if I cannot find any growing in the canal."

And with that he went off, with his line and his fishing-net, knowing that he would not be likely to meet any one, since it was yet an hour before the oosterzon, which is, in the land of Flanders, six o'clock in the morning.

Claes came to the Bruges canal, not far from the sea. There, having baited his hook, he cast it into the water and let out the line. On the opposite bank, a little boy was lying against a clump of earth, fast asleep. The boy, who was not dressed like a peasant, woke up at the noise that Claes was making, and began to run away, fearing no doubt that it was the village constable come to dislodge him from his bed and to hale him off as a vagabond to the steen. But he soon lost his fear when he recognized Claes, and when Claes called out to him:

"Would you like to earn a penny, my boy? Well then, drive the fish over to my side!"

At this proposal the little boy, who was somewhat stout for his years, jumped into the water, and arming himself with a plume of long reeds, he began to drive the fish towards Claes. When the fishing was over, Claes drew up his line and his landing-net, and came over by the lock gate towards where the youngster was standing.

"Your name," said Claes, "is Lamme by baptism, and Goedzak by nature, because you are of a gentle disposition, and you dwell in the rue Héron behind the Church of Our Lady. But tell me why it is that, young as you are, and well dressed, you are yet obliged to sleep out here in the open?"

"Woe is me, Mr. Charcoal-burner," answered the boy. "I have a sister at home, a year younger than I am, who fairly thrashes me at the least occasion of disagreement. But I dare not take my revenge upon her back for fear of doing her some injury, sir. Last night at supper I was very hungry, and I was clearing out with my fingers the bottom of a dish of beef and beans. She wanted to share it, but there was not enough for us both, sir. And when she saw me licking my lips because the sauce smelt good, she went mad with rage, and smote me with all her force, so hard indeed that I fled away from the house, beaten all black and blue."

Claes asked him what his father and mother were doing during this scene.

"My father hit me on one shoulder and my mother on the other, crying, 'Strike back at her, you coward!' but I, not wishing to strike a girl, made my escape."

All at once, Lamme went pale all over and began to tremble in every limb, and Claes saw a tall woman approaching, and by her side a young girl, very thin and fierce of aspect.

"Oh, oh!" cried Lamme, holding on to Claes by his breeches, "here are my mother and my sister come to find me. Protect me, please, Mr. Charcoal-burner!"

"Wait," said Claes. "First of all let me give you this penny-farthing as your wages, and now let us go and meet them without fear."

When the two women saw Lamme, they ran up and both began to belabour him--the mother because of the fright he had given her, the sister because it was her habit so to do. Lamme took refuge behind Claes, and cried out:

"I have earned a penny-farthing! I have earned a penny-farthing! Do not beat me!"

By this time, however, his mother had begun to embrace him, while the girl was trying to force open his hands and to get at the money. But Lamme shouted:

"The money belongs to me. You shall not have it."

And he kept his fingers tightly closed. But Claes shook the girl roughly by the ears, and said to her:

"If you go on picking quarrels like this with your brother, he that is as good and gentle as a lamb, I shall put you in a black charcoal-pit, and then it won't be I any longer that will be shaking you by the ears, but the red devil himself from hell, and he will pull you into pieces with his great claws and his teeth that are like forks."

At these words the girl averted her eyes from Claes, nor did she go near Lamme, but hid behind her mother's skirts, and when she got back into the town, she went about crying everywhere:

"The Charcoal-man has beaten me, and he keeps the devil in his cave."

Nevertheless she did not attack Lamme any more; but being the bigger of the two, she made him work in her place, and the gentle simpleton obeyed her right willingly.

Now Claes, on his way home, sold his catch to a farmer that often used to buy fish from him. And when he was home again, he said to Soetkin:

"Behold! Here's what I have found in the bellies of four pike, nine carp, and a basketful of eels." And he threw on the table a couple of florins and half a farthing.

"Why don't you go fishing every day, my man?" asked Soetkin.

"For fear of becoming a fish myself, and being caught on the hook of the village constable," he told her.

Claes, the father of Ulenspiegel, was known in Damme by the name of Kooldraeger, that is to say, the Charcoal-burner. Claes had a black head of hair, bright eyes, and a skin the colour of his own merchandise--save only on Sundays and Feast Days, when his cottage ran with soap and water. He was a short, thick-set man, strong, and of a joyful countenance.

Towards the end of the day, when evening was coming on, he would sometimes visit the tavern on the road to Bruges, there to rinse his charcoal-blackened throat with a draught of cuyte; and then the women standing at their doorways to sniff the evening dew would cry out to him in friendly greeting:

"A good night and a good drink to you, Charcoal-burner."

"A good night to you, and a lively husband!" Claes would reply.

And sometimes the girls, trooping home together from their work in the fields, would line up in front of him right across the road, barring his way.

"What will you give us for the right of passage?" they would cry. "A scarlet ribbon, a buckle of gold, a pair of velvet slippers, or a florin piece for alms?"

But Claes, holding one of the girls fast by the waist, would give her a hearty kiss on her fresh cheek or on her neck, just whichever happened to be nearest, and then he would say:

"You must ask the rest, my dears, of your sweethearts."

And off they would go amidst peals of laughter.

As for the children, they always recognized Claes by his loud voice and by the noise his clogs made on the road, and they would run up to him and cry:

"Good evening, Charcoal-burner."

"The same to you, my little angels," he would answer; "but come no nearer, lest perchance I turn you into blackamoors."

But the children were bold, and oftentimes would make the venture. Then Claes would seize one of them by the doublet, and rubbing his blackened hands up and down the little fellow's nose, would send him off all sooty, but laughing just the same, to the huge delight of the others.

Soetkin, wife of Claes, was a good wife and mother. She was up with the dawn, and worked as diligently as any ant. She and Claes laboured together in the field, yoking themselves to the plough as though they had been oxen. It was hard work dragging it along, but even the plough was not so heavy as the harrow, that rustic implement whose task it was to tear up the hardened earth with teeth of wood. But Claes and his wife worked always with a gay heart, and enlivened themselves with singing. And in vain was the earth hard, in vain did the sun hurl down on them his hottest beams, in vain were their knees stiffened with bending and their loins tired with the cruel effort of dragging the harrow along, for they had only to stop a moment while Soetkin turned to Claes her gentle face, and while Claes kissed that mirror of a gentle heart, and straightway they forgot how tired they were.

Now the previous day, the town crier had given notice from before the Town Hall that Madame, the wife of the Emperor Charles, being near the time of her delivery, it behoved the people to say prayers on her behalf.

Katheline came to Claes in a great state of excitement.

"Whatever is the matter, my good woman?" he asked.

"Alas!" she cried, catching her breath, "behold! This night the ghosts are mowing men down like grass. Little girls are being buried alive. The executioner is dancing on the body of the dead. And broken, this night, is that Stone which has been sweating blood these nine months past and more!"

"Mercy on us!" groaned Soetkin. "Mercy on us, O Lord! This is a black omen indeed for the land of Flanders."

"Do you see these things with your own eyes wide awake, or perchance in a dream?" Claes asked her.

"With my own eyes," Katheline told him. And then all pale and tearful, she continued in these words:

"To-night two children are born: the one in Spain--the infant Philip--and the other in this land of Flanders--the son of Claes, he that later on shall be known by the name of Ulenspiegel. Philip will grow up to be a common hangman, being the child of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, the destroyer of our country. But Ulenspiegel will be a master of the merry words and frolics of youth, yet good of heart withal, having for his father Claes, the brave working man that knows how to earn his own living with courage, honesty, and gentleness. Charles the Emperor and Philip the King will go riding their way through life, doing evil by battle, extortion, and other crimes. But Claes, working hard all the week, living according to right and according to law, and laughing at his laborious lot instead of being cast down thereby, will be the model of all the good workpeople of Flanders. Ulenspiegel, young and immortal, will ramble over the world and never settle in one place. And he will be peasant, nobleman, painter, sculptor, all in one. And he will continue his wanderings hither and thither, lauding things beautiful and good, and laughing stupidity to scorn. Claes, then, O noble people of Flanders, is your courage; Soetkin your valiant motherhood; Ulenspiegel your soul. A sweet and gentle maiden, lover of Ulenspiegel and immortal like him, shall be your heart; and Lamme Goedzak, with his pot-belly, shall be your stomach. And up aloft shall stand the devourers of the people; and beneath them their victims. On high the thieving hornets; and below the busy bees. While in heaven bleed for evermore the wounds of Christ."

And when she had thus spoken, Katheline, the kindly sorceress, went to sleep.

One day Claes caught a large salmon, and on the Sunday he and Soetkin and Katheline and the little Ulenspiegel had it for their dinner. But Katheline only ate enough to satisfy a sparrow.

"How now, mother?" said Claes. "What has happened to the air of Flanders? Has it suddenly grown solid, so that to breathe it is as nourishing as a plate of beef? Why, if such were the case, I suppose you will be telling me that the rain is as good as soup, and the hail like beans, and the snow some sort of celestial fricassee, fit cheer for a poor traveller?"

But Katheline shook her head, and said not a word.

"Dear me," said Claes, "our mother is in the dumps it seems! What can it be that grieves her so?"

But Katheline spake as follows, in a voice that was like a breath of wind:

"The wicked night falls blackly. He tells of his coming from afar, screaming like the sea-eagle. I tremble, and pray to Our Lady--all in vain. For the Night knows neither walls nor hedges, neither doors nor windows. Everywhere, like a spirit, he finds a way in. The ladder creaks. The Night has entered into the loft where I am sleeping. The Night seizes me in arms that are cold and hard as marble. His face is frozen, and his kisses like damp snow. The whole cottage seems to be tossed about over the earth, riding like a ship at sea...."

Claes said: "I would counsel you to go every morning to Mass, that our Lord Christ may give you strength to chase away this phantom from hell."

"He is so beautiful!" said Katheline.

Ulenspiegel was weaned, and began to grow like a young poplar. And soon Claes gave up caressing him, but loved him in a roughish manner, fearing to make a milksop of him. And when Ulenspiegel came home complaining that he had got the worst of it in some boyish affray, Claes would give him a beating because, forsooth, he had not beaten the others. And with such an education Ulenspiegel grew up as valiant as a young lion.

When Claes was from home, Ulenspiegel would ask his mother to give him a liard with which he might go out and amuse himself. Soetkin would grow angry, and ask why he wanted to go out for amusement--he would do better to stay at home and tie up faggots. And when he saw that she was not going to give him anything, the boy would start yelling like an eagle, while Soetkin made a great clatter with the pots and pans that she was washing in the wooden tub, pretending that she did not hear his noise. Then Ulenspiegel would fall to weeping, and the gentle mother would stop her pretence at harshness, and would come and kiss him.

"Will a denier be enough for you?" she would say.

Now it should be noted that a denier is equal to six liards.

Thus did his mother dote on Ulenspiegel even to excess; and when Claes was not there, he was king in the house.

One morning Soetkin saw Claes pacing up and down the kitchen with head bent, like a man lost in thought.

"Whatever is the matter with you, my man?" she asked him. "You are pale, and you look angry and distracted."

Claes answered her in a low voice, like a dog growling.

"The Emperor is about to reissue those cursed placards. Death once again is hovering over the land of Flanders. The Informers are to have one half of the property of their victims, if so be that such property does not exceed the value of one hundred florins."

"We are poor," Soetkin said.

"Not poor enough," Claes answered. "Evil folk there are--crows and corpse-devouring vultures--who would as readily denounce us to the Emperor for half a sackful of coal as for half a sackful of florins. What had she, poor old Widow Tanneken that was wife to Sis the tailor, she that was buried alive at Heyst? Nothing but a Latin Bible, three gold florins, and a few household utensils of English pewter. But they were coveted by a neighbour. Then there was Joanna Martens whom they burnt as a witch after she had been thrown into the water, for her body did not sink and they held it for a sign of sorcery. She had a few miserable pieces of furniture and seven gold pieces in a bag, and the Informer wanted his half of them. Alas! I could go on till to-morrow morning giving you instances of the same kind. But to cut a long story short, Mother, life's no longer worth living in Flanders, and all on account of these placards. Soon every night-time the death-cart will be passing through the town, and we shall hear the arid click of bones as the skeletons shake in the wind."

Soetkin said: "You ought not to try and frighten me, my man. The Emperor is the father of Flanders and Brabant, and as such he is endowed with long-suffering, gentleness, patience, and pity."

"He would be obliged to renounce too much if he were all that," Claes answered, "for he has inherited a great amount of confiscated property."

At that very moment the sound of a trumpet was heard, and the clash of the Heralds' cymbals. Claes and Soetkin, carrying Ulenspiegel in their arms by turns, rushed out towards where the sound came from, and with them went a great concourse of people. They came to the Town Hall, in front of which stood the Heralds on horseback, blowing their trumpets and sounding their cymbals, and the Provost with his staff of justice, and the Town Proctor, also on horseback and holding in his hands the Imperial Edict which he was preparing to read out to the assembled multitude.