By tradition it also brought instructive and improving items. Hebel had been writing pieces for it since 1803. Before 1808 his contributions had taken two main forms. He wrote instructive articles on natural history: on the processional caterpillars to be found in native oak woods; on the miracle of natural propagation by seed; on snakes, spiders and moles. The item on moles has been included in the present volume; it shows his gift as a teacher who calls on his pupils to recognize the value of expert knowledge and to act upon it. It also reveals him in what we would now call a green role. Elsewhere too he dwells on the wonders of nature and the wisdom of God’s creation. He pours scorn on superstition and fantastic myth, but exotic and incredible things are related as bait for the reader. There are fish that fly! Stories about the tarantula are to be

regarded with caution, some spiders are poisonous, but not those in Germany; only the credulous believe in dragons! He warns strongly against the fashion for tight garters worn by men below the knee, they restrict the circulation which works like an irrigation system in the fields – and what happens to plants that are deprived of water? After 1807 more similarly practical advice was to follow, on the preparation of corn seed, how to make ink, to preserve wooden posts from rot or to care for fruit trees, or why clothing should be disinfected after illness. Each issue brought descriptions of the heavenly bodies and the laws which regulate their movements, all in the language the common man could follow. But already, before he was responsible for the almanac, Hebel contributed little amusing or intriguing anecdotes with an explicit or implied moral. The moral might simply involve a suggestion for the treatment of arrogance and testiness, as in ‘Dinner Outside’ (p. 7) and ‘The Clever Judge’ (p. 8), two pieces from 1803.

As sole contributor Hebel increased the number and variety of narrative items and set the reader riddles to solve. His material was

seldom if ever original. ‘A Strange Walk and Ride’ (p. 23), for instance, is a version of a parable that has been told many times and is perhaps best known from the Fables of La Fontaine. Hebel drew on anything he read, heard or overheard, and most of all on a collection of jokes and stories published in ten volumes from 1763 to 1792 (Vade Mecumfür lustige Leute edited by Friedrich Nicolai). He had a genius for reducing a story to its essentials. But he spent much time and effort in rewriting the items. He hoped that this would not be noticed in the finished product which had to appear natural and spontaneous. Privately, however, he wrote of the pains he took: the articles might seem to be effortlessly natural, yet writing pieces which showed no sign of art or effort was more demanding than composing something more obviously impressive. He had two guides. One was the training in stylistics derived from his classical education. (‘Kannitverstan’ [p. 40], one of his most famous stories, started as a school exercise in Latin composition.) The other was his knowledge of the everyday language of ordinary people and his ear for the rhythms of their speech. For his aim as

educator was to speak to the ordinary man in his own language. The task was made easier because he loved that language himself. Here, however, he made sparing use of dialect (and removed its most obvious features when revising his articles for inclusion in the Schatzkästlein). Yet the simple syntax, the pithy phrases, the freedom of word order, the avoidance of abstractions in favour of concrete analogies, in short the oral tone he adopted, has persuaded generations of readers that his work is natural, unstrained, and of the people.