Friday, July 9, 2010

Day 130: Till Eulenspiegel


In the story Till Eulenspiegel there is a man who makes practical jokes almost about everything. Till wants to see the world and travels around the Holy Roman Empire making pranks mostly to craftsmen but even the nobility and the pope gets fooled by him.

There are many tales about how Till got his name, especially the last name. The first name is supposed to be a nickname from Tilldrick which comes from Dietrich. The last name in High German "Eulenspiegel" comes from words Eule (=owl, pöllö) and Spiegel (=mirrow, peili) but it could also be a kind of wordplay. In Low German the wordplay "Ul'n spegel" means something like "kiss my ass!". That would suit quite nicely to the character of Till: in the end he did not care what the other people thought about him or his tricks. =)

No comments:

Post a Comment