Invariably the comic element appears in the puppet shows of all nations. In Germany and Austria the buffoon has always been a part of even the most tragic dramas, lending variety and relief by his good natured, if somewhat obvious jests. The first names by which he was known in Germany may have been Meister Eulenspiegel or Hemmerlein, later it became Hanswurst and Kasperle. The name Kasperle, so Rabe claims, came through Austria and Professor Pischel goes still further in his assertion that the prototype for Kasperle was brought into the land over two thousand years ago from India. Later, of course, Italian and French players introduced Pulcinella and Arlecchino with their merry company. In Hamburg puppets have been popular from earliest times. It was in 1472 that a showman announced _The Public Beheading of the Virgin Dorothea_. This theme remained a favorite in the puppet plays of that city for centuries, while the long suffering martyr continued to be ever more and more elaborately but neatly beheaded, in full view of the audience. In the eighteenth century an announcement proclaimed: “Exceptional marionette players with large figures and, accompanied by lovely singing, the execution of Dorothea.” The play of _The Prodigal Son_ was another great favorite. It gradually lost its religious character and became a rather gruesome affair producing with ingenious mechanical appliances metamorphoses of which the country has always been particularly fond. For instance, Reibehand, a tailor who set up a booth in the horse market of Hamburg, advertised in 1752: “The Arch-prodigal chastened by the four elements, with Harlequin a joyous companion of the great criminal.” This _extra-moral_ piece, given in great style, displays the prodigal about to partake of fruit which turns into skulls in his hands, then water becomes transformed into fire, rocks rend apart disclosing a corpse hanging from a gallows. As it swings in the wind, the limbs fall off and then collect again, on the ground, and arise to pursue the prodigal, and so on with similarly pleasing surprises. In 1688 another showman, Elten, advertised _Adam and Eve_ and following it _Jackpudding in a Box_ and later another announces: _Elijah’s Translation into Heaven_, or _The Stoning of Naboth_, followed by a farce, _The Schoolmaster Murdered by Jackpudding_ or _The Baffled Bacon Thieves_. There had been in Hamburg, however, French marionette troupes which gave very artistic puppet operas based upon mythological subjects, such as _Medea_, including in one of its casts a puppet who smoked! These plays were produced in combination with acts by living actors, jugglers, acrobats, and trick horses.