Weather booklet
The Wetterbüchlein is a meteorological folk book by Leonhard Reynmann that first appeared in 1505 . This makes it one of the oldest works of its kind. At the same time, it is the first directory of weather rules that is not based exclusively on meteorology from ancient and medieval sources, but also on observations. Nevertheless, the book also refers to older astrological sources, some of which are taken literally, such as Ptolemy .
The Wetterbüchlein was published between 1505 and 1538 in 17 different editions, twelve of which are precisely dated. The first edition is only known from quotations today. A reception of the weather booklet has been proven until the early 19th century. Translations were also in circulation in the English-speaking world from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
The book begins with a prologue written in verse in which a greater seriousness is asserted compared to the oral traditions of the farmers. The actual set of rules is written in prose . Some of the weather rules have also found their way into traditional, orally transmitted knowledge as peasant rules . At the end of the little weather book there are again around 50 rhyming verses, most of which deal with the interpretation of the omens for rain. Some of these rules can be traced back to the 13th century.
expenditure
- L. Reynman: Weather Booklet . Of true knowledge of the weather (1510). Reprint [of the 1893 edition] with an introduction by Gustav Hellmann : Kraus-Reprint, Nendeln / Liechtenstein 1969.
- Leonhard Reynmann: Weather booklet. From the knowledge of the weather. Johann Schönsperger the Elder J. , Augsburg 1514 ( digitized version ).
literature
- Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli (ed.): Concise dictionary of German superstition . De Gruyter, Berlin (1938/1941), Volume IX.