Des Knaben Wunderhorn, a collection of more than 700 German folk-songs made by L. J. von Arnim and C. Brentano chiefly in the years 1804-7. The first volume was published in the autumn of 1805, though the title-page gives the year 1806; the second and third volumes followed in 1808. The title refers to the figure of a boy mounted on a horse and brandishing a horn, and this in turn illustrates Das Wunderhorn, the first poem in this anthology. It is a translation of an old French lay. The large collection covers a wide range, as the classified index, with its rubrics Geistliche Lieder, Handwerkslieder, Historische Romanzen, Liebeslieder, Trinklieder, and Kriegslieder, indicates. No attempt was made to preserve pure texts, and indeed the editors made frequent amendments in accordance with their own tastes; but the source, whether oral or printed, of many of the folk-songs is given. The Wunderhorn was criticized as an unscholarly publication, but it succeeded in its purpose of widely disseminating the extraordinary wealth of German folk-song, and has long been regarded as one of the most important and influential documents of the German Romantic movement.
