Complaint of the Birds in the Wittenberg Wood to Luther

The following is a satirical letter written by the Reformer, Martin Luther, from the perspective of some birds. In 1534, at 51 years old, Luther would see the first complete edition of his German Bible published, enjoy the birth of his last child (a daughter by the name of Margarethe), begin preparing his last major lecture series (on Genesis), and also be incessantly bothered by his servant catching and selling birds just outside of Luther’s window. Wolfgang Sieberger, as is often told, trapped birds in his garden and sold them to people who would eat them. Whether annoyed by the noise, pricked by the thought of suffering birds, or just teasing a friend in his unsuccessful effort at a new profession, Luther sought to put an end to the feathersome ruse. And so he wrote a letter for Sieberger’s reading, a complaint by the birds to Luther himself.

Martin Luther might be deemed the patron saint of humor at birdhouse. His crude use of wit in polemics is highlighted often by scholars. But it is his pastoral hilaritas that endear him to us. If Luther was annoyed by the noise, what a pastoral way to tell a friend to “cut it out;” if suffering for the birds, read here a heart-warming approach to help a friend love the peace of wild things; and if simply teasing a failed professional endeavor, be reminded of the pastoral approach to all of our failures and that of our friends: God is just and the justifier of the ungodly, so lighten up a little. Above all, hear the complaint of these birds as a call. A call to slow down and care less about our need for measurable results. Like a song we sing to one another about a God who bids us laugh with a friend rather than languish under the burden of the urgent. A song sung by children and saints in the twilight of life. A song we all will sing some day, and the one Christ introduced by saying, “And the second is like unto it” (Matt. 25:39).

Complaint of the Birds in the Wittenberg Wood to Luther

To our good and kind Dr. Martin Luther, preacher in Wittenberg. We thrushes, blackbirds, linnets, gold-finches, along with other well-disposed birds who are spending the summer at Wittenberg, desire to let you know that we are told on good authority that your servant, Wolfgang Sieberger, out of the great hatred he bears to us, has bought some old rotten nets to set up a fowling-ground for finches, and not only for our dear friends and finches, but in order to deprive us of the liberty of flying in the air and picking up grains of corn, and also to make an attempt upon our lives, although we have not deserved such a punishment at his hands.

Thus we poor birds humbly beseech you to prevent him carrying out his intentions, or if that be impossible, compel him to scatter corn for us in the evening, and forbid him rising before eight in the morning to visit the fowling-ground, and by doing this we shall ever be grateful to you, as it will enable us to take the route through Wittenberg. But if he continue his wicked attacks upon our lives, then we shall pray God to restrain him, and supply him with frogs, locusts, and snails instead of us, and visit him with mice, lice, fleas, and bugs in the nights, so that nothing may interfere with our freedom of flight.

Why does he not vent his wrath on the sparrows, magpies, crows, mice, and rats which inflict so much injury on man, stealing the corn from the barns, which we never do, for we only pick up little fragments and single grains of corn, which we requite a hundredfold by swallowing flies, gnats, and other insects?

We put our case before you in a common-sense way, to see if we are not cruelly treated in having so many snares laid for us.