He looked down at himself.His back hurt, his bottom was sor from days in the saddle. At him, Martin von Wolkenstein, who had never done anyone wrong, with a real bullet made of lead. The fat count nodded and trued to imagine someone seriously shooting at him, aimingover the iron sights. The bloody battlefield real-life characters from the time are all interlink in what is a series of episodic nature as he meets mary queen of scots mother and her husband the king of Bohemia, counts and see the great battles of the thirty years war. Then as he leaves we see the events of the 1600s as he heads to the heart of what was called the never-ending war. We see as he grows and events happen he has to leave his village to get into the wider world. We see him growing up walking the rope in his home village that is like other villages but has a Grimm like feel with mentions of goblins and witches here is where the lines between the history of the time and the folk tales of the time. But here we see him three hundred years after he first appeared in folklore since the 1500s the story here is set during the thirty years war. He is a wandering chap a minstrel and jester all in one. The book focuses on the character of Till Eulenspiegel ( renamed Tyll Ulenspiegal here) the character has been in dutch and German folklore. But first of all it wouldn’t be nic, and secondly he hasn’t forgotten that she won the stone throwing contest at the last village festival The boy consideres whether to chase her away. The pain won’t let him slepp, which is why he needs claus’s protective magic. He knows her by sight her father often comes to the mill, because ever since Hanna Krell cursed him after a quarrrel he has been plagunesd by rheumatism. On the very first day, one of the baker’s daughter appears and sits down in the grass. Weeks pass before his legs allows him to get back on the rope.

As I said I had read F by him and this is one I was sent and had planned to read as it mixes folklore, historic and a nod to the present in this work which is considered his best book. I had thought I reviewed Daniel Kehlmann before but I had read F when it was on the old IFFP list but I didn’t get round to reviewing it rather like this year I think the time was running against me I had half read this in prep for the Booker prize but when it came to picking it up again I started and read it through in a couple of days.

Tyll daniel