The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Fortunatus

FORTUNATUS, the title of a collection of popular tales, the earliest known publication of which took place in Augsburg in 1509, though it includes fairy lore and popular legends of an earlier period. They teach that wealth is not sufficient to secure permanent happiness, which is illustrated by its ultimately ruining Fortunatus and his sons, who were in possession of boundless riches and of a talisman enabling them to attain all their desires. The conception was long supposed to be of Spanish or English origin, but the Germans claim it. In 1530 appeared a new edition entitled Fortunatus von seinem Seckel und Wunschhütlein; and since that time numerous editions and translations have appeared in the chief European languages. It has been dramatized in German by Hans Sachs, and in English by Thomas Decker. The earliest edition is reproduced in Simrock's Deutsche Volksbücher (3 vols., Frankfort, 1846), and the subject is a favorite theme of German poets, and of expounders of mediæval literature.