'Ännchen von Tharau'

‘Ännchen von Tharau’, a well-known 17th-c. poem, often sung and commonly regarded as a Volkslied. It was long believed to be by S. Dach, but doubt has been cast on this attribution in favour of H. Albert who wrote the tune. It is a nuptial song intended, and perhaps commissioned, for the wedding of Annke, daughter of the pastor of Tharau in East Prussia. The original is in dialect, and the High German version normally sung was made by Herder in 1778 to a tune by Silcher. The poem was translated by H. W. Longfellow as ‘Annie of Tharaw’.