4 h 49 minAudiobook10 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 4 h 49 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
In the furrows and hedges, a small creature lives by its ears, its legs, and its nerve.
In Mümmelmann, Hermann Löns brings you close to the animals of northern Germany’s fields, woods, and heaths. At the centre stands the hare called Mümmelmann, whose life turns on small decisions and constant watchfulness. Around him, foxes, birds, and other wild creatures feed, hide, and follow their own needs in a world of hunters and hunted.
This collection of animal tales reveals the countryside through close, patient observation. A hunter, journalist, and nature writer, Löns watches how animals move through the seasons. The hare tales and sketches of foxes and birds offer no hurried escape from the land: they invite you to linger over weather, light, sound, and the movements of wild creatures.
What you’ll discover
- A hare’s watchful world Follow Mümmelmann through a life where small decisions call for sharp senses and nerve.
- Foxes, birds, and cunning Meet wild creatures with their own needs and ways of finding food or staying hidden.
- The hunter’s close attention Discover the watchful eye of a writer who follows animals through every season.
- Fields, woods, and heaths Linger among furrows, woodland edges, and hedges, with weather, light, and sound close at hand.
- Plain words, vivid scenes Enjoy clear, direct language rich in country words and grounded in patient observation.
Who will love it
Readers who love animals, forests and heaths, dry humor and close watching of nature will feel at home here, and so will anyone who enjoys short tales that can be read one at a time.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A three-legged hare faces the hunters
- A woodcock courts his way home
- Crows gossip about a changing world
- Hunters and hunted in the mountain woods
- Dogs, birds and a badger at home
- The year turns for hedgehog, squirrel and fox
- What the animals teach and how Löns tells it
Who’s who
- Haanrich MümmelmannAn old three-legged field hare who warns his neighbors of a drive and uses cunning to slip through a ring of guns.
- MurkerichA young woodcock who flies from Egypt to the Ahlten Forest near Hanover, looking for a mate and the right patch of earthworms.
- GoldhalsThe strongest pine marten on the mountain, a quick night hunter who must learn what daylight can cost him.
- AchtzackA brawling old roebuck who rules his woods each summer, scattering rivals and being hunted in turn by the forester.
- BöbchenA cheeky terrier mix who thinks he is master of the house, rolls enamel pots and goes out on nightly adventures.
- JakobA young raven raised in a city garden who steals, plays pranks and answers every visitor with one favorite word.
- WaldmannA forester's dog who smells a strange creature in the yard and cannot make his master believe him.
- HoppsA coal-black rabbit buck with a silver blaze who helps two does dig a burrow on a strange heath.
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 4 h 49 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 10 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Mümmelmann
by Hermann Löns · 1909
A three-legged hare outwits a ring of hunters, and a woodcock flies home from Egypt to find a mate.
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In short
Mümmelmann is a collection of animal tales by the German writer Hermann Löns, who spent his life walking the heaths, forests and farmland of northern Germany with a gun and a notebook. The book gathers short pieces about hares, foxes, woodcocks, crows, martens, deer, hedgehogs and squirrels, and about a few animals who share a home with people.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A three-legged hare faces the hunters
The title tale opens with a train full of hunters heading for a winter drive. Löns pokes fun at them: the loud boasting, the card games, the flasks and the huge pockets. Their talk of bucks, blood and fur is a foreign language to everyone else on the train, and no one believes the fat man's tale of his long shot.
In the fields of Knubbendorf lives Haanrich Mümmelmann, an old buck with only three legs. Crows ate the fourth after an earlier drive. A red-backed shrike tells him what is coming down the road, and he warns Geesche Wittblaume and the other hares he meets. Then he scrapes a hollow on a bare rise and waits, thinking that humans are the worst predators of all.
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What is Mümmelmann about?
It is a collection of short animal tales by Hermann Löns. The stories follow hares, woodcocks, martens, foxes, crows, stags, hedgehogs and a few pets, showing how they live, hunt and cope with hunters and a changing countryside.
Who is Mümmelmann?
Mümmelmann is an old three-legged hare in the title tale. He warns his neighbors and uses cunning against a ring of hunters. A later tale features another old hare with the same family name.
Are the stories true or made up?
They are invented tales, but based on real habits that the author observed as a hunter and naturalist. The animals speak, but their behavior, such as a fox testing the wind or a hedgehog's courtship, is true to life.
The author
Hermann Löns
1866–1914 · German writer and journalist
Hermann Löns (1866–1914) was a German journalist and writer. He was born in Culm, West Prussia, now Chełmno in Poland, and lived in Hanover. He wrote novels, stories and poems. Mümmelmann appeared in 1909 and The Warwolf in 1910. He died in France while serving in the First World War.
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