Fortunatus

Fortunatus is the title of one of the best people's books (Volksbücher) ever written. It originated about the end of the 15th century, though many of the tales and legends included in it are of much older date. The opinion that it was worked up into German from a Spanish or English original may safely be set aside. The substance of the book is that Fortunatus and his sons after him are the possessors of an inexhaustible purse of gold and a wishing-cap, which however, in the end, prove the cause of their ruin. The moral is that worldly prosperity alone is insufficient to produce lasting happiness. The oldest printed edition of the book now extant bears the date 1509. Later German editions mostly bear the title, Fortunatus, von seinem Seckel und Wunschhütlein. It has been reprinted in the third volume (1846) of Simrock's Deutsche Volksbücher. Versions of the story have appeared in French, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and even Icelandic. The first to dramatise the subject was Hans Sachs, in Der Fortunatus mit dem Wunschseckel (1553), after whom comes the English Thomas Dekker, with his Pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus (1600), a work which had the honour to make its reappearance in German about the year 1620. The most poetical edition of the story is that given by Tieck in his Phantasis. See Schmidt, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyklopädie (sect. 1, vol. xvi.).