raphic
figures, he may nevertheless achieve a work where the real value and
beauty lie in a certain interlinear humor and poetry,--where the labels
can in some degree be disregarded.

Indeed, it is this very abstract charm of music that finds in such a
subject its fullest fitness. If we care to know the pranks exactly, why
not turn to the text? Yet, reading the book, in a way, destroys the
spell. Better imagine the ideal rogue, whimsical, spritely, all of the
people too. But in the music is the real Till. The fine poetry of
ancient humor is all there, distilled from the dregs of folk-lore that
have to us lost their true essence. There is in the music a daemonic
quality, inherent in the subject, that somehow vanishes with the
concrete tale. So we might say the tonal picture is a faithful likeness
precisely in so far as it does not tell the facts of the story.

Indeed, in this mass of vulgar stories we cannot help wondering at the
reason for their endurance through the centuries, until we feel
something of the spirit of the people in all its phases. A true mirror
it was of stupidity and injustice, presented by a sprite of owlish
wisdom, sporting, teasing and punishing[A] all about. It is a kind of
popular satire, with a strong personal element of a human Puck, or an
impish Robin Hood, with all the fairy restlessness, mocking at human rut
and empty custom.

[Footnote A: On leaving the scene of some special mischief, Till would
draw a chalk picture of an owl on the door, and write below, _Hic fuit_.
The edition of 1519 has a woodcut of an owl resting on a mirror, that
was carved in stone, the story goes, over Till's grave.]

It is perhaps in the multitude of the stories, paradoxical though it
seem, that lies the strength. In the number of them (ninety-two
"histories" there are) is an element of universality. It is like the
broom: one straw does not make, nor does the loss of one destroy it;
somewhere in the mass lies the quality of broom.

In a way Till is the Ulysses of German folk-lore, the hero of trickery,
a kind of _Reinecke Fuchs_ in real life. But he is of the soil as none
of the others. A satyr, in a double sense, is Till; only he is pure
Teuton, of the latter middle ages.

He is every sort of tradesman, from tailor to doctor. Many of the
stories, perhaps the best, are not stories at all, but merely clever
sayings. In most of the tricks there is a Roland for an Oliver. Till
stops at no estate; parsons are his