Book II Summary and Analysis

Gluckel is betrothed for two years and marries at fourteen in the village of Hameln. Her parents and twenty wedding guests travel by peasant wagon from Hamburg to Hanover where they stop to write for transport the rest of the way to Hameln. Gluckel's mother Bela assumes the groom's father will send carriages for the bridal party trip to Hameln. Little peasant carts drawn by horse arrive three days later. Joseph Hameln toasts Bela but she is ruffled by the carts so he claims to be "just plain country folk" and tells about his own wedding to clear the air. Gluckel's parents leave the young girl with her in-laws immediately after the wedding. Gluckel considers Hameln a "dull shabby hole" with only two Jews compared to her birthplace Hamburg. Only the piety of Joseph Hameln sing-songing his morning prayer...