From my children's book cabinet - Kasperle by Josephine Siebe

I don't know if someone really told me, if I had made it up myself or dreamed it (which would be funny), but at the age of about 5 I believed that if you dream the same thing three times, it comes true.
I have always been a vivid dreamer and in later years often had repetitive dreams, but the particular dream I waited for then just wouldn't come to me.
So I sat down on my bed couch, squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated very hard. What I wanted to come true, you'd like to know? I wanted a living Kasperle sooo bad.
I didn't fall asleep, I didn't dream, I didn't get a living Kasperle, the disappointment was big.
Josephine Siebe and her Kasperle books were to blame for that disappointment.

A linen bound edition of the first volume from 1951

The story of the Kasperle (also Kasperl or Kasper depending on the region) is a long one. It's a puppet (mostly hand puppet) that probably has its origin in Austria. In German speaking countries it has been known since the end of the 18th century.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Similar puppets are for example Punch from the UK, Guignol from France or Pulcinella from Italy.
That kind of puppet play was originally not aimed at children and could be quite violent and later also be used for political purposes, for example by the National Socialists.
In the 20s, however, an educational Kasper also emerged trying to teach a younger audience to do the right thing. This is also the kind of puppet theater that still exists today.

As a hobby, a friend of ours had started a puppet theater with a friend of his. After that friend passed away, the ex took his place for occasional shows at a library. Of course that was way before electronic devices of all kinds took over completely.
It was amazing to see the children's reactions which were much like my own when I had seen a puppet play as a kid. I have no idea if that would still work or if the children just get younger and younger because there are still puppet theaters out there, I sometimes see posters up in town.

An edition of the seventh book from 1957
showing the typical Kasperle with a big nose and
wearing colorful clothes and a pointy hat

Now what about the living Kasperle, though?
For several years, Josephine Siebe worked as an editor for a newspaper's women's supplement and wrote articles, reviews and feuilletons including articles about the women's movement.
Between 1900 and 1940, she wrote almost 70 children's books, the best known ones are the seven Kasperle books published between 1921 and 1930. As you can tell from me still reading those in the early 70s, they were quite popular and actually they are still available in print or as ebooks, the German ones are also on the German Projekt Gutenberg-DE.
Siebe's books were illustrated by some of the best known illustrators of the time, in color or black and white.

Kasperle is not wearing his own clothes in this scene as he has left them
behind to be more inconspicuous which doesn't seem to work!

The story begins in a small house in the forest. In that house, a woodcarver, Master Friedolin, lives with his wife Annette and their adoptive daughter Liebetraut. He carves Kasperle puppets and his wife makes clothes for them.
One day, Liebetraut says she wishes the puppets were alive and Master Friedolin tells her that his great-great-great-grandfather had had a living Kasperle. He had met him one night in the forest and took him home, then he started carving dolls after his face instead of the saints and the household items he had made before. After Friedolin's grandfather had died, however, the secret where the Kasperle was got lost.
A litte later, Friedolin looks for something in his cupboards and finds a little split. When he pulls, a little door opens and out comes the lost Kasperle! They find a note with him saying that the ancestor's apprentice had given him a sleeping potion. Now they also understand why a dealer from the town is always trying to buy the old cupboards. He is a descendant of that apprentice and therefore knew of the Kasperle.

After a little tiff, Kasperle runs into the forest and then travels and has adventures, with a farmer, in a castle, in a school, with a gardener - and there he meets Mr. Severin who knows where he has come from. Kasperle is not like Pinocchio who has changed from a doll to a living boy. He comes from a far away island where the Kasperles live, but no one knows where that island is.
In the end, Mr. Severin takes Kasperle back to the forest house, falls in love with Liebetraut and marries her. Kasperle is happy being back, but thinks it might be even better on the island which is his real home.

Over the next few books, Kasperle has many adventures and I loved all of them. He often got into trouble, got locked up and escaped, had enemies and very good friends, came back home, and he even found his island, but left it again in the end because he missed his friends.

I spent some very happy hours with Kasperle as a child and eventually got myself some older editions of all seven books.
When Kasperle has eaten too much or falls down from somewhere he's sure he's going to die, but instead of "ich sterbe", he says "ich stirbse". I loved that word when I was small and still use it sometimes today.
Maybe Kasperle is how I would have liked to be myself. He was completely free and impulsive and definitely no overthinker.

Siebe's books were translated into several languages. I could only find one entry for Kasperle in English, "Kasperle's Adventures" from 1929 and 1939.
Have you ever heard of it or have you ever heard about the "Kasperle" in puppet theater before?


Source:

Nina Preißler: Siebe, Josephine - Leipziger Frauenporträts. On: Website Leipzig City, 2014 (in German)