Abstract

This article examines two short narratives by Hans Sachs, ‘Of the Lost Talking Gulden’ (1553) and ‘The Poor Complaining Horse Hide’ (1557), as early ‘it-narratives’ that feature material things as their narrators, focalisers and protagonists: a gulden coin, and a horse hide that is then made into a shoe respectively. The small size of these things and their interaction with humans here works not to make them accessible for human handling, but allows them to provide a macro- and a micro-perspective on human society as an alternative to the normal anthropocentric view of sensory perceptions.