Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source:http://www.archive.org/details/inyearatalemeck00reutgoog
In presenting to the public this, the first English translation of oneof Reuter's works, it may not be superfluous to say a few wordsconcerning their author.
Though his name is unknown in England, in Germany he is one of the mostpopular authors of the day. His stories and poems are written inPlatt-deutsch, and are read wherever that dialect is spoken, that isto say throughout Northern, or Lower, Germany,--extending from Memel inthe extreme North East to Aix-la-Chapelle in the South West,--and eventhe Germans of the more southern and higher-lying States, wherePlatt-deutsch is unknown, now frequently learn it for the sole purposeof reading Reuter's works.
The following story, called in the original "Ut de Franzosentid", waspublished in 1860, and rapidly passed through several editions. It isone of a series to which Reuter has given the name of "Olle Kamellen"literally "old camomile-flowers", by which he means "old tales, oldrecollections, useful as homely remedies." It is one of the mostpopular of his works, and perhaps also the most translateable. Hencethe reason for bringing it first before the English public.
The scene of the story is laid in Stavenhagen, or Stemhagen as it iscalled in Plattdeutsch, Reuter's native town. The characters introducedwere all real people; and even their names have been retained.
The story opens at the moment when the German people was at lengthbeginning to rise against Napoleon, and it gives a vivid picture of thestate of feeling which then prevailed in Germany towards the French.The Germans were in the galling position of being forced to treat theFrench as allies, whilst hating them with an intense and unconquerablehatred. And this hatred, wide-spread over the whole country, is shownin the expressions of detestation ever bursting forth at the mention ofthe French name.
The language in which the story is written is closely allied to theSaxon, and has much more resemblance to English than High German has;but it is nevertheless a dialect, and bears the same relation to theHigh German as the child's language does to the man's; and my aim hasbeen, while endeavouring to make the translation read like an Englishwork,