I dedicate the stories to a very special group of persons - the 'Einleger'. These were the farm-laborers in the old days that had become too old to work and had nobody to take care of them and nowhere to stay. They wandered from farm to farm where they were given food and accommodation for a night or two after which they continued on their way.

Lenzl was a 'Einleger in St. Georgen / Gusen in Austria.
And Lenzl was different. Instead of wandering from house door to house door, saying:
"I beg for me poor, the rich ones need no succour",
Lenzl 'gugatzte' - what means he called:
"Cuckoo, cuckoo".
And wherever he called children and adults flocked to him.
For Lenzl was a story teller.

In the evenings, after he had had his cream soup with potatoes and a glass of apple cider or sometimes even a glass of wine, he stuffed his pipe with coltsfoot, arnica or farmers tobaco.

Then the children and the grown-ups asked him eagerly: "Tell us, Lenzl, do you have a new story for us?"
The old man shook his head and said: "No, I have no new story for you, but I will tell you an old one, a nearly forgotten one."
With trembling fingers he lit his pipe and drew on it until a big plume of smoke covered him.

And then Lenzl began to tell ...


Claudia Edermayer