The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel in the Land of Flanders & Elsewhere

Ulenspiegel was living at Koolkerke, in the intimate favour of a farmer's widow, a sweet and gentle person who refused him nothing of what was hers to give. He was very happy there, petted and made much of, until one day a treacherous rival, an alderman of the village, lay in wait for him early in the morning when he was coming out of the tavern, and would have beaten him with a wooden club. But Ulenspiegel, thinking to cool his rival's anger, threw him into a duck-pond that was full of water, and the alderman scrambled out as best he could, green as a toad and dripping like a sponge.

-from Chapter XXXVII

Based upon scatterings of European folktales and mythologies, this is a romantic drama of human vice and virtue spun around the wanderings of Tyl Ulenspiegel, artist, prankster, and fool.