Introduction
Manfred Kyber was born on March 1st, 1880 in Riga, Latvia and died on March 10th, 1933 in Löwenstein, Germany. He was an author who wrote animal stories and fairy tales that are both extraordinarily simple and profound at the same time. The essence of his animal stories can be regarded as a result of the fact that he was a great animal lover, but they also convey thoughts of a deeper nature.
Because the copyright has expired in the year of 2003 (70 years after the author's death), I made some of his stories freely available and I also translated them into English.
It is no easy reading: these stories can be touching as well as disturbing.
Preface
The preface of the book "Das Manfred Kyber Buch" puts it all in a nutshell:
Animals have their comic and their tragedy like us. They are full of similarity and mutual
relationship. The humans mostly believe that there is an abyss between them and the animals.
It is only a step in the wheel of life. For all of us are children of one whole. To recognize nature,
one has to understand its creatures. To understand a creature, one has to see the brother in it.
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Table of Contents
Below are some stories from one of his books. They appear in the same order as in the book. The number of pages for each story is the number of pages in the book where these stories were taken from.
| Title |
Book
Pages
(approx.) |
Description |
| The Great Moment |
1 |
A short story of a little bird in a cage that dreams of flying free. One day, the great moment arrives... |
| Silent Pleas |
2 |
A story about a young wether who is taken from the flock by a strange man who does not look like a shepherd... |
| The Pilgrim with the Dragging Hind Leg |
2 |
A short story of a little beetle that is ill and is on a pilgrimage. He meets a bumble-bee who is a proficient housewife, but she does not seem to understand what his pilgrimage is about... |
| Little Mandrake |
18 |
On a rainy February day, a little boy is born and the doctors do not think that his chance of survival is good. He seems disabled, like a mandrake that has been pulled out from the earth -- a child mandrake. Little Mandrake is called a stupid boy by the educated people (or by those who only think they are). But Little Mandrake has many questions and sees and hears things that the educated people do not perceive at all... |
| Friendship |
3 |
A story of a basket-maker and his dog who live on the shore of the Lake Zug in Switzerland. The basket-maker continues to weave strange old patterns, like those who were unearthed by archaeologists from sites where in ancient times, houses were built on stilts. The archaeologists seem to know a lot, but the basket-maker as well as his dog do know more... |
| Little Karl Octopus |
6 |
In the Mediterranean, the inhabitants are quite different, as is their conversation. The characters range from naïve to educated, but in the end, the seemingly naïve one really reaches her goal... |
| The Promised Land |
36 |
A monk had not been able to find his god in his monastery cell. So he leaves his monastery to look for him in the solitude of a wild forest... |
| The King Travelling Entertainer |
30 |
In India, a son is born to a poor couple of the lowest caste. His mother believes he is a king's son, although her husband laughs about it. Soon after that, the plague arrives in the village and the parents flee, but the plague catches up with them... |
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Source
Das Manfred Kyber Buch, Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Reinbek 1985 (or earlier),
Hardcover, 408 pages, ISBN 3-498-03420-0.
Translation into English by U. Messerle
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