Old Firehand (1875)
Old Firehand is an early adventure story by Karl May and was published in 1875 under the full title From the portfolio of a much-traveled. by Karl May. No. 2. Old Firehand .
Text history
The text was first published in the German Family Gazette in 1875 .
Under the heading Old Firehand. Story by Karl May , the text was published in 1885 in the magazine Im Familienkreise , the free supplement to the Rheinischer Merkur , published by Heinrich Theissing in Cologne.
In the 1890s, an eight-part edited and illustrated reprint followed under the anonymizing heading From the Folder of a Well-Traveled Man. Narrative based on true events in a previously unknown compilation with the abbreviation T. , which was probably published by HG Münchmeyer .
In 1902 the story was added to the anthology Humoresken und Erzählungen based on this arrangement . Further editions of the volume appeared in 1906 and around 1908, the last anonymous.
The story Old Firehand has been part of the Collected Works since 1967 in Volume 71 of the same name .
A licensed edition of the 71st volume was published for the first time in 1971 in the Karl May Pocket Books series .
In 1975 the Karl May Society published the volume Deutsches Familienblatt as a private print in the series Erstdrucke Karl May in facsimile editions , which also contained a reprint of Old Firehand .
In 1978, Manfred Pawlak Verlag Herrsching published the anthology In the Far West as a bound edition. This includes the story in a modernized version.
The Pawlak volume was reissued in 1983 as a paperback and a licensed edition of the same set in 1992 in the Leipzig commission and wholesale book trade.
A modernized version of Old Firehand, illustrated by Günter Wongel, appeared in the GDR student magazine drum in 1984 .
The reprint of the Karl May Society Fürst und Junker , which appeared in 1990, contained not only the novel by Friedrich Axmann, but also May articles from the first year of the Deutsche Familienblatt , including this story.
In the 1990s Weltbild Verlag published the anthology Old Firehand in the series Weltbild Collector's Edition , which contains the cover story in the humoresque and narratives version in a modernized form.
In 1999 the text was published in this version as a book edition by Verlag Neues Leben .
In 2003, the first print was republished in the Karl May Society's reprint volume of the same name.
In 2006, the miniature book publisher Leipzig published Old Firehand as the first volume in its Karl May series , in the version of the Collected Works . The presentation of the miniature book is based on Volume 71, but it only contains the cover story.
content
The nameless first-person narrator rides his black horse Swallow through the prairie in search of the oil settlement New Venango. He meets a young woman, Ellen, who comes from the settlement and accompanies him there.
She tells him that her father is German, but her mother was an Indian and that Emery Forster (the "Oil Prince") is her uncle.
Once in the settlement, Forster wants to buy Swallow. When the first-person narrator refuses, Forster insults him, which he accepts for the sake of Ellen. Ellen thinks he is a coward and leaves him.
After the first-person narrator has done his shopping and wants to leave again, he at least wants to say goodbye to Ellen. By chance he overhears a conversation between Forster and Ellen, from which it becomes clear that Forster is draining oil in order to raise prices. Then the drill encounters oil which ignites due to carelessness. While the whole valley goes up in flames, the narrator pulls Ellen onto his horse and can leave the inferno with her at the last second.
At the last moment, brought to safety, Ellen bitterly reproaches him for not having saved everyone, breaks free and runs back. She loses a ring, which he picks up and puts on.
Some time later, Winnetou and the narrator learned of a planned Indian attack on a railway line . They manage to warn the train crew. Old Firehand , a friend of Winnetou's, is also on the train . The attack can not only be prevented - the train crew surprises the Indians. Winnetou and Old Firehand are particularly targeting the Indian leader, Parranoh; the narrator succeeds in overpowering him. Winnetou scalps him. After these experiences, the three make their way to Old Firehands Hide-spot. During a nightly conversation around the campfire, the narrator from Old Firehand learns that Winnetou once loved an Indian woman named Ribanna . But this took Old Firehand to man and Winnetou waived.
A little later Firehand discovers Ellen's ring on the hand of the narrator and the narrator tells how he got the piece of jewelry. Little by little, he now learns the whole story: Ribanna died at the hand of Parranoh, who is actually a white man and whose name is Tim Finnetey. Ellen is their daughter and thus also the daughter of Old Firehands.
Arrived in Old Firehands "fortress", which is guarded by Sam Hawkens , the narrator meets some hunters and trappers as well as Ellen again.
While checking beaver traps, the hunters notice Indians who are near the "fortress". Obviously Parranoh is one of them, whom they believed dead.
Before they can go to the Indians, they are attacked by them. After several battles and captures, the Old Firehands company is ambushed by the Ogellallahs in the fortress. In the end, Winnetou, Sam Hawkens, Miss Ellen, and the narrator are trapped; Old Firehand, Dick Stone, Will Parker, Bill Bulcher and Harry Kroner are dead. The first-person narrator manages to loosen his and Sam Hawkens' fetters and, together with him, free the others. You manage to escape. In the pursuit, Tim Finnetey dies at Winnetou's hand. Even so, the situation seems hopeless until a troop of Dragoons join them from Wilkes Fort. The Ogellallahs flee.
The first-person narrator gets Ellen.
swell
- Friedrich Gerstäcker : In the petroleum and on the prairie
- Carl Beyschlag: The prairies - experiences of a German refugee
variants
In 1879 Karl May edited the text for the first book edition of one of his texts, the book for young people in the far west. Two stories from Indian life for the youth by Carl May and Fr. C. von Wickede .
In the course of this adaptation, the young girl Ellen, with whom the first-person narrator (not yet Old Shatterhand ) falls in love, became the boy Harry, younger than Ellen. However, May was unable to eradicate all references to the love story, which is why the edited version looks a bit strange in places. Winnetou's figure is also depicted in a less barbaric way. In the original version he scalps his dead enemies without hesitation and eats the stub of a cigar that has been smoked.
In 1893 May included this edited version as an Old Firehand adventure in the book edition of Winnetou II .
Others
- The mention of the wedding, which took place a little later, does not come from May, but from the editor of the above-mentioned compilation T.
- There is a cross-reference to the story The Oil Prince ( I knew this terrible phenomenon because I had seen it in all its horror in Kanawhathale ... ).
Settings
There are four radio play productions of the material:
- Old Firehand (1966) by Kurt Vethake (Philipps, barrel, carousel)
- Old Firehand (1975) by Kurt Stephan (various labels)
- Old Firehand (1975) by Heikedine Körting ( Europe )
- Old Firehand (2015) by Dirk Hardegen, Ohrenkneifer
The existence of a Firehand adaptation from 1935 is known from program notes. The radio play itself has not been preserved.
literature
- Hainer Plaul: Illustrated Karl May Bibliography. With the participation of Gerhard Klußmeier . Edition Leipzig 1988. ISBN 3-361-00145-5 (or) KG Saur Munich – London – New York – Paris 1989. ISBN 3-598-07258-9
- Hartmut Kühne: The May stories in the "German Family Gazette". In: Karl May: Old Firehand. Rare original texts Volume 3. Reprint of the Karl May Society 2003, pp. 9–27, especially pp. 15–21 and 25–27. ( Online version )
- Wilhelm Vinzenz, Jürgen Wehnert: "Old Firehand" and the big "T." In search of a mysterious collection. In: Karl-May-Welten II. Karl-May-Verlag Bamberg-Radebeul 2007, pp. 13-23. ISBN 3-7802-3025-9
Web links
- The original text from the Deutsches Familienblatt online at the Karl May Society .
- The original text after humoresques and stories online on the website of the Karl May Society .
- The entry in the book database .
- The entry in the audio game database .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Plaul / Klußmeier, p. 24 f., No. 22.
- ↑ Kühne, p. 24.
- ↑ Vinzenz / Wehnert, pp. 13–23; see. Plaul / Klußmeier, p. 21, No. 8.
- ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Humoresken_und_Erzählungen
- ↑ Plaul / Klußmeier, pp. 259 f., No. 350; Pp. 289-291, No. 397 and pp. 319 f., No. 446.
- ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Ellen
- ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Emery_Forster
- ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Parranoh
- ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Teufelspass-Syndrom
- ↑ Vinzenz / Wehnert, p. 20.
- ↑ Jenny Florstedt: "Old Firehand" radio plays: Extension of the chronology - at both ends . In: Karl May in Leipzig No. 102, 2015.