Page:Grimm's household tales, volume 2 (1884).djvu/471

Rh Literatur, 187, 188). The last part is likewise in the Latin Æsop of Joach. Camerarius (1564), p. 347, 348, and in Gregor Bersmann's (1590), but neither Greek nor Roman fable-poets are acquainted with it. The story was known as early as in the 13th century, for Hug von Trimberg tells it in the Rener 23666-23722.

From a story in Neust's Kinderhibliothek (Hildburghausen, 1827), 2, 143, 144. Compare L. Wiese's Märchenwald (Barmen, 1841). I am able to point out an embodiment of the idea which is at least three hundred years older. Martin Heineccius wrote a Latin comedy in verse, which he afterwards translated into German. It appears under the name of Hans Pfriem oder Meister Kecks; nothing is said about the place of publication, 1852 (sic), is at the end of the preface, and it was reprinted at Leipzig in 1603, and at Magdeburg in 1606 (See Gottsched's Nöthiger Vorrat zur Geschichte der deutschen dramatischen Dichtkunst, 1. 119, 2. 244). In his preface the author relates the story on which his poem is founded, and observes in the conclusion, that Dr. Luther knew and enjoyed it, as may be seen by his Sermon on the 15''th chap. of the First Epistle to the Corinthians''. Long ago there was a waggoner called Hans Pfriem, who was a very extraordinary old fellow, proud of his head, and thought every one was to take advice from him, but that he was to take it from no one. But as Hans Pfriem was so entirely unbearable and fidgetty, and so desperately overwise, he was not wanted in Paradise, and orders were given not to let him in if he should die. He did die, and slipped in as best he could before any one was aware. When they were about to drive him out he spoke them fair, and promised to behave well, so they let him stay. But in a very short time, when he saw all kinds of things, and the way people managed them in Paradise, where everything was done in a peculiar heavenly way which he did not understand, and could not bring his mind to grasp, he was secretly exasperated, and on the point of wishing that he had never got in at all. For such people are enraged when things are not done in their own way. However he stifled much of what he felt, and let nothing of it be seen, but could not help being secretly astonished when he saw the maidens drawing water in the rooms; some carried it in old casks full of holes, which always remained full though the water ran out of them. This he could not comprehend, and it seemed most strange to him. He saw much more of the same kind, and yet dared not criticise it. Once he saw them trying to go through a narrow alley with a long squared beam laid athwart their shoulders. It nearly killed him, but he dared not let a word slip. At length he came across a waggoner who, having