The Ditmarsch Tale of Wonders explained

What happens

Key passages

• “I saw two roasted fowls flying; they flew quickly and had their breasts turned to heaven and their backs to hell”

  I witnessed two cooked chickens flying swiftly, oriented with their chests toward heaven and their backs toward hell.

  An impossible image of roasted fowls flying in an inverted orientation.

• “and an anvil and a millstone swam across the Rhine prettily, slowly, and gently”

  A heavy anvil and a millstone crossed the Rhine River in a graceful, slow, and gentle manner.

  Describes heavy objects swimming, defying natural laws.

• “and a frog sat on the ice at Whitsuntide and ate a ploughshare”

  During the Pentecost season, a frog sat on ice and consumed a metal plow blade.

  A frog performing an impossible act in an unlikely season.

• “Three fellows who wanted to catch a hare, went on crutches and stilts; one of them was deaf, the second blind, the third dumb, and the fourth could not stir a step.”

  Four men set out to catch a hare using crutches and stilts, but one was deaf, one blind, one mute, and the fourth unable to move.

  A paradoxical hunting party with contradictory disabilities.

• “First, the blind man saw the hare running across the field, the dumb one called to the lame one, and the lame one seized it by the neck.”

  The blind man spotted the hare, the mute shouted to the lame man, and the lame man caught it by the neck.

  Each character performs an action impossible given their stated disability.

• “There were certain men who wished to sail on dry land, and they set their sails in the wind, and sailed away over great fields.”

  Some men desired to sail on land, so they raised their sails and traveled across vast fields.

  An absurd image of sailing across fields instead of water.