# Volksmärchen der Deutschen

Volksmärchen der Deutschen ('Folktales of the Germans'; original spelling: Volksmährchen der Deutschen) is an early collection of German folk stories retold in a satirical style by Johann Karl August Musäus, published in five volumes between 1782 and 1787.

## Stories

| Volume | Year | Original title | Literal translation | First English translation |
| 1 | 1782 | "Die Bücher der Chronika der drey Schwestern" [de] | 'The Books of the Chronicles of the Three Sisters' | 1791 |
| 1 | 1782 | "Richilde" [de] | 'Richilda' | 1791 |
| 1 | 1782 | "Rolands Knappen" [de] | 'Roland's Squires' | 1845 |
| 2 | 1783 | "Legenden von Rübezahl" | 'Legends of Rübezahl' | 1791 |
| 2 | 1783 | "Die Nymphe des Brunnens" [de] | 'The Nymph of the Spring' | 1791 |
| 3 | 1784 | "Libussa" [de] | 'Libussa' | 1827 |
| 3 | 1784 | "Der geraubte Schleier" [de] | 'The Stolen Veil' | 1791 |
| 3 | 1784 | "Liebestreue" [de] | 'Love-Loyalty' |
| 4 | 1786 | "Stumme Liebe" [de] | 'Mute Love' | 1813 |
| 4 | 1786 | "Ulrich mit dem Bühel" [de] | 'Ulrich with the Hump' | 1845 |
| 4 | 1786 | "Dämon Amor" [de] | 'Demon Cupid' | 1845 |
| 5 | 1787 | "Melechsala" [de] | 'Melechsala' | 1805 |
| 5 | 1787 | "Der Schazgräber" [de] | 'The Treasure Seeker' | 1823 |
| 5 | 1787 | "Die Entführung" [de] | 'The Elopement' | 1801 |

## Publication and translation

Volksmärchen der Deutschen was first published in five volumes between 1782 and 1787 by C. W. Ettinger in Gotha, Thuringia.
After Musäus's death in 1787, his widow requested Christoph Martin Wieland publish a re-edited version of the tales, which he did as Die deutschen Volksmährchen von Johann August Musäus (1804–1805).
It has been reprinted many other times in Germany, including 1787–8, 1795–8, 1912, 1965, and 1976.
An abridged version edited by Moritz Müller for children, illustrated by Hermann Vogel, was published in Stuttgart by Thienemann in 1887.

### English translations

The first English translation was Popular Tales of the Germans (1791) by Thomas Beddoes, which contained five of the stories: "Richilda", "The Book of the Chronicles of the Three Sisters", "The Stealing of the Veil", "Elfin Freaks" ("Legenden von Rübezahl"), and "The Nymph of the Fountain". This book was published anonymously, and the translation was traditionally attributed to William Beckford. Other early translations include "The Elopement" in the magazine The German Museum (1801), and the "Legends of Rübezahl" published in three chapbooks by S. Fisher (1804–1805).
In the early nineteenth century, some French translations of the Volksmärchen were translated into English. "The Lost Veil" and "Melechsala" were translated in Tales (1805) from Isabelle de Montolieu's Recueil de contes (1803), an abridged version of "The Spectre-Barber" ("Stumme Liebe") was translated in Tales of the Dead (1813) from Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès's Fantasmagoriana (1812), and another abridged translation of "Stumme Liebe", by Isabelle de Montolieu, was translated as "The Dumb Lover" in La Belle Assemblée (1814).
A number of direct translations were published in the 1820s, as part of an increased British interest in German Romanticist literature. This included two stories in Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations (1823), one of the "Legends of Rübezahl" in Endless Entertainment (1825), one story in Thomas Roscoe's The German Novelists (1826), "The Elopement" in The Odd Volume: Second Series (1827), another translation of "The Elopement" in The United States Review and Literary Gazette (1827), three stories in Thomas Carlyle's German Romance (1827), and two of the "Legends of Rübezahl" in The Pocket Magazine (1827). In the 1830s, Julia Emily Gordon completed an unpublished translation of The Books of the Chronicles of the Three Sisters, one of the "Legends of Rübezahl" was translated by Henry Fox Talbot in Legendary Tales, in Verse and Prose (1830), new abridged translations of "The Spectre Barber" were published in the Royal Lady's Magazine (1831) and The Decameron of the West (1839), and another of the "Legends of Rübezahl" was translated in the Ladies Companion and Literary Expositor (1837).
The 1840s saw a revival of interest in German traditions following the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840, which may have led to the subsequent new translations of Musäus's work. This included two of the "Legends of Rübezahl" in The Annualette (1841), the "Legendary Tale of the Graf von Gleichen" (a partial translation of "Melechsala") in Rambles and Researches in Thuringian Saxony (1842), The Three Sisters: A Story (1842), "Libussa" in Tales from the German (1844), three stories in Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845), two in The Enchanted Knights; or The Chronicle of the Three Sisters (1845), seven in Select Popular Tales from the German of Musaeus (1845), one of the "Legends of Rübezahl" by Caroline M. Sawyer in the Universalist Union (1845), "The Elopement" in Sharpe's London Magazine (1846), two in The Nymph of the Well and The Barber's Ghost (1848), Melechsala (1848), a light-hearted free verse poem version of the "Chronicles of the Three Sisters" as The Arm! – the Sword! – and the Hour! Or, the Legend of the Enchanted Knights (1850), The Stolen Veil; or, the Tale à la Montgolfier (1850), two in Libussa, Duchess of Bohemia; also The Man Without a Name (1852), and three of the "Legends of Rübezahl" in Hutchings' California Magazine (1859–1860).
A number of new translations were published in the 1860s, including one of the "Legends of Rübezahl" in The Art-Journal (1861), The Three Sons-in-Law (1861), Mark Lemon's Legends of Number Nip (1863), all five of the "Legends of Rübezahl" in The Spirit of the Giant Mountains (1864), and a new translation by Lemon of the "Chronicles of the Three Sisters" in Fairy Tales (1868). A few more followed, such as one in Wonder-World Stories (1877), Harriet Pinckney Huse's Roland's Squires (1891), "The Treasure Seeker" in Andrew Lang's The Crimson Fairy Book (1903), the first Volksmärchen Rübezahl tale in The Brown Fairy Book (1904), two stories in Magic Casements: A Second Fairy Book (1907), and an abridged version of the first of the "Legends of Rübezahl" in The Greatest Adventure Stories Ever Told (1945).
More recently, Fritz Eichenberg adapted the first of the "Legends of Rübezahl" as Poor Troll (1983), Janet Ritch translated The Elopement (1989) for the Victoria University Library, Jack Zipes translated "Libussa" in Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture (1991), and Piri Korngold Nesselrod retold the five "Legends of Rübezahl" in Rübezahl: The Adventurous Mountain Spirit (1999).