“MERRY STORIES AND FUNNY PICTURES”, claims the frontispiece of Heinrich Hoffman’s magnum opus Struwwelpeter (“Shock-headed Peter” to his English friends), though unholy infant terror is a better description of what lies between these covers. Depraved, violent, sometimes fatal retribution for those who offend against the Hoffman’s “merry” code — transgressions including such mortal sins as fidgeting, failing to eat soup, sucking thumbs, playing with matches, being careless with umbrellas and walking along vacantly — along with more recognisably modern ailments like animal cruelty and racism. So:
Animal cruelty: A dog bite, some unpleasant medicine and redistribution of Frederick’s pudding to victim dog.
Playing with matches: Death (non-spontaneous human combustion).
Casual racism: Being forcibly dyed black by bearded giant.
Hunting: Finding yourself, your spouse and her coffee cup being shot at by the very bespectacled rabbit you were hunting in the first place. (Rabbit’s own child suffers collateral injury, being scalded by falling coffee). In fairness, it is a fairly credulous hunter who allows himself to be so comprehensively outwitted by a near-sighted rabbit. No-one emerges out of this tale with much credit.
Thumb sucking: Forcible amputation of thumbs by large man in red trousers with giant shears.
Not eating soup: Death (starvartion)
Fidgeting: Having the dining room table collapse on you and incurring wrath of your parents.
Walking vacantly: Near-drowning. Loss of schoolbook. Mirth of fish.
Playing with umbrella in a storm: Death (presumed; cause not articulated; body never recovered).
