The Beginnings of Till Eulenspiegel's Reception in Scandinavia

The German collection of the adventures of the rogue Till Eulenspiegel was one of the most popular texts in the European literary production of the Late Middle Ages, as witnessed by its various translations and adaptations in various languages. From the 1530s onwards, in fact, Till Eulenspiegel became the protagonist of a series of texts in Dutch, French, English, Polish, Yiddish and Latin. Eventually, at the end of the 16th century, he arrived in Scandinavia, where a Danish and a Swedish version have come down to us. A Danish version of the Eulenspiegel, which is now lost, might have existed in 1571 when the translator of Georg Wickram's Vngi Karlis og Drengis Speiel mentions, in his preface, a not better specified "Ugelspegels Historie". Even though in the Catalogus librorum qvi reperiuntur in Bibliotheca Laurentii Alberti, civis ac bibliopolæ ciuitatis jmperialis Lubicensis of 1591 a text called Til Vlenspiegel is included as a "Danish book", the first preserved copy of a Danish Tiile Ugelspegel appeared about 100 years later (ca.1690, Underlig og selsom Historie, om Tiile Ugelspegel, en Bondes Søn, barnfød udi det Land Brunzvig, Saare kortvilig at læse. Af Tydsken Paa Danske unsat, Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, 59, -149 8o). From 1781 to 1813 at least four other Danish versions were produced and have come down to us. The only Swedish preserved version dates back to 1661: Ett hundrade twå vnderlige, sällsamme, och mycketlustige historier, om Thil Ulspegel, en bonde son bördigh vthaff thet landet Brunswigh, sammandragne och beskrefne (Stockholm, Kungl. bibliotheket, F1700 2327). This study focuses on these two first Scandinavian versions of the German Volksbuch and on their relationship to the Middle High German prints, in order to ascertain if they belong to this branch of the Eulenspiegel tradition or if they derive from a Low German original gone missing, as seems to be the case of the French, Dutch and English translations.