In the Library
The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel
Charles de Coster, 1867
- Form
- Form Novel
- Difficulty
- Difficulty Moderate
- Reading time
- Reading time 7 hours
- Translated by
- Translated by Geoffrey Whitworth (1918)
- Chapters
- Chapters 85
- Length
- Length 97k words
£1.99
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The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast.
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- Yours for good, on every iPhone you sign in to.
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About the book
"The ashes of Claes beat against my heart." Thyl Ulenspiegel carries them in a little bag at his neck, all that is left of his father, a charcoal-burner of Damme burned alive by the Inquisition, and every prank and ambush that follows answers to them. Born on the same day as Philip II of Spain, Thyl starts out as the great joker of Flanders, the owl and the mirror of his own name, and grows into the wandering spirit of a people in revolt against the king who shares his birthday. Beside him trudges Lamme Goedzak, fat, gentle, always hungry and always searching for the wife who left him, a Sancho Panza who can weep over a good stew. Charles de Coster wrote it in a mock-antique French thick with songs, feasts and gallows, and his own country barely noticed; he died poor. The book outlived that neglect to become Belgium's founding epic. It is bawdy one page and furious the next, and under all the laughter you can hear the ashes knocking.