EULENSPIEGEL (ULENSPIEGEL), TILL, the name of a popular German figure, and the title of a German chapbook of the beginning of the 16th century. The oldest extant text of the book was printed at Strasbourg in 1515 (Ein kurtzweilig lesen von Dyl Vlenspiegel geboren vss dem land zu Brunsswick), and is in High German, but the original was undoubtedly Low Saxon. Its hero, Till Eulenspiegel or Ulenspiegel, the son of a peasant, was born at Kneitlingen in Brunswick at the end of the 13th or at the beginning of the 14th century and died, according to tradi tion, at Molln near Lubeck in 1350. He is locally associated with the Low German area extending from Magdeburg to Hanover, and from Luneburg to the Harz Mountains. The jests and prac tical jokes ascribed to him were collected—if we may believe a statement in one of the old prints—as early as 1483. He is the wily peasant who exercises his wit and roguery on the trades people of the towns, above all, on the innkeepers; but priests, noblemen, even princes, are also his victims. His jests are often pointless, more often brutal; he indulges, when opportunity offers, in scurrility and obscenity. The satire of the chapbook turns on class distinctions, and it might be described as the re taliation of the peasant on the townsman who in the 14th and I sth centuries had begun to look down upon the country boor as his inferior. Eulenspiegel wss early translated into Dutch, French, English, Latin, Danish, Swedish, Bohemian and Polish. In England, "Howleglas" (Scottish, Holliglas) was long a familiar figure; his jests were adapted to English conditions, and appro priated in the collections associated with Robin Goodfellow, Sco gan and others. Ben Jonson refers to him as "Howleglass" and "Ulenspiegel" in his Masque of the Fortunate Isles, Poetaster, Alchemist and Sad Shepherd.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-The Strasbourg edition of 1515 (British Museum) Bibliography.-The Strasbourg edition of 1515 (British Museum) has been reprinted by H. Knust in the Neudrucke deutscher Litera turwerke des 16. and 17. Jahrh. No. (1885) and by E. Schroeder (1911) ; that of 1519 by J. M. Lappenberg (1854) . Some ten further editions appeared in the first half of the 16th century at Cologne, Erfurt, Strasbourg and Augsburg. Johann Fischart pub lished an adaptation in verse, Der Eulenspiegel Reimensweiss (Frank furt, 1571), K. Simrock a modernization in 1864. The earliest transla tion was that into Dutch ; it is undated, but may have appeared as early as 1512 (facsimile reprint, The Hague, 1898) . This served as the basis for the first French version: Ulenspiegel, de sa vie, de ses oeuvres et merveilleuses aduentures par luy faictes, etc. (1S32). Reprint, ed. by P. Jannet (1882) . It was followed by upwards of 20 French editions. C. de Coster's La legende et les aventures d'Ulen spiegel (Brussels, 1912; Eng. trans. 1918) is a modernization of the legend. The first complete English translation bears the title: Here beginneth a merye Jest of a man called Howleglas, etc. printed by Copland in three editions, probably between 1548 and 156o. Reprint by F. Ouvry (1867) . There was, however, a still older English edition (15 i 8 ?) , of which the British Museum possesses fragments ( reprinted by F. Brie, Eulenspiegel in England, 1903) . In 172o appeared The German Rogue, or the Life and Merry Adventures of Tiel Evlespiegle. Made English from the High-Dutch; and an English illustrated edition, adapted by K. R. H. Mackenzie in i88o (repr. in Broadway Translations) . On Eulenspiegel in England, see C. H. Herford, Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century (i888), pp. 242 ff., and F. Brie's work referred to.
(J. G. R.)