¹The protagonist of the «Märe» is not Meier Helmbrecht but his son.  «Meier» is an archaic word for ‘tenant farmer.’
²Spessart is a heavily wooded region near Aschaffenburg on the Main.
³Note that Paris’ «hybris»  and the death of Helche’s sons at the battle of Ravenna («Rabenschlacht») are aptly contrasted to Aeneas, who is known for his filial piety, and to Charlemagne’s justified use of force against the heathen.
⁴King Charles, that is, Charlemagne, Roland, and Oliver are the principal characters in the Chanson de Roland (c. 1100), of which there was a German version by Pfaffe Konrad.  Turpin was the archbishop who was also in Roland’s army and  to whom a Latin account of the fight at Roncesvaux was ascribed.
⁵Presumably the town of Arles in southern  France.
⁶Galicia is a former province of northwestern Spain and not to be confused with a province by the same name in southern Poland.
⁷Schnalle:  lacing
⁸Ort and Erp, who appear in German stories referred to as the Dietrich poems, the Rabenschlacht, Alpharts Tod, and Dietrichs Flucht.
⁹Haudegen:  experienced fighter, ‘old blade’
¹⁰The description of this scene, with its groups of dancing figures is a burlesque in two ways—mockery of the peasant who wears such finery and attempts thereby to associate himself with courtliness, and of the whole tradition of romance which purported to be able to depict scenes like this on cloth, cloaks, hoods, saddles, and the like.
¹¹This parallels Helmbrecht in that she, too, has abandonded her station in life.
¹²Helmbrecht’s female relatives are largely responsible for his misguided ambitions because of their determination to dress him  above his station.
¹³The horse was considered a sign of position or rank of the upper classes, and by buying it the father also contributes to his son’s downfall.
¹⁴Ruprecht is a neighbor to whose daughter the father had wished to marry Helmbrecht.  This rather ironic allusion to the conflict in Hartmann von Aue’s Erec—as related in Iwein, l. 2790—who had become so infatuated with his wife that  he neglected adventurous pursuits,  emphasizes the «hybris»  of Helmbrecht.
¹⁵Stelzbein:  wooden leg
¹⁶Achsenstumpf:  the stump left after his arm has been cut off
¹⁷In ll. 601f. young Helmbrecht had offered his own interpretation of his father’s dreams:  using courtly diction in anticipation of his new life, the author has him proclaim them as omens of good fortune and happiness.
¹⁸At the time this «Märe» was written there were undoubtedly many so-called noblemen who robbed and plundered in exactly the way described here.  A more ‘refined’ form of plunder was to exact tolls on goods passing through one’s territory, a practice that explains why there are so many castles in strategic locations in Europe.
¹⁹"als ihn der Büttel kirre machte":  when the bailiff ‘tamed’ him, i.e. brought him to justice.
²⁰"Gratia vester" in the original, which is clearly bad kitchen Latin for perhaps ‘your Grace.’
²¹French for ‘Gott zum Gruß’
²²Czech for ‘Good Morning’;  however, this is inappropriate because Helmbrecht arrives late in the day (ll. 795-801) and should be saying ‘Good Evening.’
²³Neither father nor mother can understand Helmbrecht’s words and conclude that the speaker comes from  one of the remote areas of the German territory, Bohemia in the southeastern, Saxony in the northeastern, or Brabant in the northwestern region of the Empire.  The Wends were the Slavic inhabitants of the Brandenburg area around Berlin.
²⁴This could also indicate that the father—who is obviously perplexed and has no knowlegde of languages—thought that he was Italian since ‘Walh’ refers to a resident of any romance-speaking area, usually France or Italy.
²⁵The meaning is clear.  Helmbrecht addresses the servants in a mixture of Flemish and Low German as ‘dear sweet children.’  During the thirteenth century it was quite fashionable to adorn one’s speech with Flemish expressions, as Fritz Tschirch points out in his commentary.  The fact that Helmbrecht mixes the two is evidence of his ignorance and reveals him to be a typical «parvenu».
²⁶‘What’s all that nonsense you are talking about?  You and that silly old wench over there.  No peasant should ever dare touch my horse or me with his paws.’
²⁷"Buhurdieren" was a form of tournament in which a large number of knights lined up, divided into two groups, and fought until one side was clearly beaten.  The conditions approximated those of actual combat much more than did the formal joust between two individuals, which was governed by an increasingly complex set of rules (cf. ill. on p. 401).
²⁸Ex!:  bottoms up!
²⁹Wetzstein:  whetstone
³⁰Sense:  scythe
³¹Gerichtsdiener:  deputy, bailiff
³²im Paßgang laufen: pace
³³Mockingly the father repeats young Helmbrecht’s own words (ll. 1040f.)