The Adventurous Simplicissimus · Chapter
X: Relation of Certain Peasants Concerning the Wonderful Mummelsee explained
Simplicissimus, now free but with a depleted purse, entrusts his farm and household to his foster-parents Melchior and his wife, who manage it with thrift and skill, restoring its prosperity.
What happens
Simplicissimus, now free but with a depleted purse, entrusts his farm and household to his foster-parents Melchior and his wife, who manage it with thrift and skill, restoring its prosperity. He avoids society and marriage, preferring solitary walks. One day he joins a group of men listening to old peasants tell fantastical tales about the Mummelsee, a supposedly bottomless lake on a high mountain. The stories include claims that objects change parity when lowered into it, that throwing stones causes storms, and that water-spirits appear. Some peasants recount historical attempts by a Duke of Württemberg and an Archduke of Austria to sound or drain the lake, which ended in failure or were abandoned for fear of catastrophe.
Themes in this chapter
Folly and Wisdom
Simplicissimus dismisses the peasants' tales as fables, yet the stories contain wisdom about nature and the supernatural, contrasting his skepticism with the collective lore.
Fortune and Fate
The tales of the Mummelsee involve mysterious forces that alter numbers, cause storms, and offer riches or doom, reflecting the capriciousness of fate.
Deception and Appearance
The lake's appearance as a simple body of water belies its magical and dangerous properties, and the peasants' stories blur the line between truth and illusion.
Characters to notice
- Simplicissimus
Narrator and protagonist; now free and managing his estate through his foster-parents, he takes solitary walks and listens to peasant tales about the Mummelsee.
- The Mummelsee
The wondrous lake on a high mountain, described as bottomless and the subject of many strange tales and historical attempts to explore it.
Key passages
“So now did I find myself restored to mine ancient freedom, but with a purse pretty well emptied of gold, and yet a great household overburdened with cattle and servants.”
I regained my freedom, but my money was nearly gone, and I had a large estate with too many animals and workers.
Simplicissimus describes his situation after being set free, highlighting his reduced wealth and the burden of his household.
“For one said if any man should tie up an odd number of things such as peas or pebbles, or whatnot, in a kerchief, and let it down into the water, presently the number would be even.”
One peasant claimed that if you lower an odd number of items into the lake, they become even.
A peasant recounts a supernatural property of the Mummelsee, where numbers change parity.
“And if one should drop in an even number, at once it became odd.”
If you drop an even number, it immediately becomes odd.
Continuation of the same peasant's tale about the lake's magical effect on numbers.
“Others, and indeed the most part, declared, and confirmed what they said by examples, that if a man should throw in one or more stones, however fair the skies might be till then, at once there would arise a terrible storm with fearful rain, hail and hurricane.”
Most peasants agreed that throwing stones into the lake instantly causes a violent storm, even in clear weather.
A common belief among the peasants about the lake's power to summon storms.
“One told how on a time, as certain herdsmen were keeping cattle by the lake, there arose a brown ox out of the water that mixed with the other cattle, but there followed him a little mannikin to drive him back into the lake; who would not obey till the little man had sworn that if he did not come back he should suffer all the ills of human kind.”
A herdsman saw a brown ox emerge from the lake and mingle with the herd, followed by a small man who threatened the ox with human suffering if it didn't return.
A peasant tells a story of a water-spirit and a magical ox from the Mummelsee.
“Another said it happened at a time when the lake was frozen over that a peasant, with his oxen and sundry trunks of trees, such as we hew planks out of, passed over the lake without harm; but when his dog would follow him the ice broke, and so the poor beast fell in and was never seen again.”
A peasant crossed the frozen lake safely with oxen and timber, but his dog fell through the ice and disappeared.
A tale illustrating the lake's selective danger, sparing the peasant but taking his dog.
