The Faithful Hussar

"The Faithful Hussar" (German: "Der treue Husar") is a German song based on a folk song known in various versions since the 19th century. In its current standard form, it is a carnival song from Cologne since the 1920s.

A source claims, that in the estate of Caspar Josef Carl von Mylius () (1749–1831) a handwritten version of the text from 1781 was found, that Mylius brought from Austria to Cologne. The proof was found after his death in 1831. This version is supposedly the oldest ever. Since this version obviously has not been published, the exact wording and the correspondence with later versions can not currently be verified.

In 1808 Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano in the third volume of their collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn published a version of the text under the title "Die gute Sieben" (The good seven). Achim von Arnim had compiled from this text from five different versions, that had been recorded by Bernhard Joseph Docen, Auguste Pattberg, Bettina von Arnim and two unknown senders.

In 1816 Johann Gustav Gottlieb Büsching first published a melody to the song, that has been recorded by Carl Hohnbaum in Franconia, which does not match today's popular tune.

In Münsterische Geschichten (1825) we find a version similar in wording to the now popular one. In 1856 Ludwig Erk in the first edition of the his collection Deutscher Liederhort published three different versions of the song. The 1893 version of the same collection compiled by Franz Magnus Böhme contains seven different versions of the text and five different melodies.

In the earliest published versions of the text, the acting person is mostly referred to as "Knabe" (boy) or "Edelknabe" (squire). The editors of the Wunderhorn also received two entries referring to a "brave soldier", which were not used for the Wunderhorn version though. Evidence for versions of the text referring to a "hussar" as acting in person date back to the 1880s only: they were recorded in 1880 at Imbden near Dransfeld (Province of Hanover) and in 1885 in Oberlahnkreis and Kreis Wetzlar.

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