Munchhausen, Baron

mun-chaw'sen, Baron (1720-1797), a German soldier. He was a native of Hanover. As a soldier he was a harum-scarum, dare-devil sort of fellow, getting into no end of scrapes. He served in the Turkish campaign of 1737-9. He had a wonderful faculty of telling tales of personal adventure in which a lively imagination was allowed full play. Many of these stories he drew from ancient volumes. His Table Talk and Wondrous Tales were compiled by an acquaintance under the title of Baron Munchhausen's Narrative of his Marvelous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. His surprising adventures rival those of Swift's Gulliver. There is his tale of a night's lodging, for instance. Traveling through a snowy waste, he sought an inn far into the night. At last, in utter weariness, he tied his saddle horse to a stake, as he supposed. Then, wrapping his military cloak about him, he lay down on the snow to sleep. When he awoke in the morning he lay on the bare ground. The snow had melted. His faithful steed hung by the halter from the village steeple sixty feet above the earth. The Baron was equal to the emergency. Drawing his pistol he cut the halter strap with a well directed bullet. His horse slid to the ground uninjured and the veracious traveler continued his journey.