Zait Gaist

Zait Gaist, pseudonym for Michaela Leidlitz (1567–1636), was a Walstädter poet affiliated with the proletarian movement. Her poems related only to the daily lives of ordinary folk in Walstadt. Her most famous line is from the poem "Schmidt der Schmied" (1601) ("Smith the Smith"), which has become an idiom in Whales since:

My ancestors, all blacksmiths, elected me blacksmith.
Who am I to reject democracy?

—Zait Geist, from "Schmidt der Schmied", in Der Schnee liegt hoch, translated from the Saxon by Jonder Demander in New Walstadt Poetry: An Anthology, Eliria, 1603

Despite the proletarian themes of her poems, Zait Gaist was believed to be the pseudonym of a local nobleman until her sons, Frederick and Wolfgang, announced her real identity in 1650 during an exhibition in Walstadt.