The question of gay marriage has hardly been resolved, but the next big issue is already on the horizon: Kobold marriage. On April 26, a district court in Munich faces an unusual legal conundrum: Should Pumuckl, an animated water sprite who has captured the imagination of countless German kids, be allowed to find a girlfriend and marry her?

For Pumuckl graphic artist Barbara von Johnson, 45 years of service as Germany’s favourite celibate Kobold should have earned the creature some love. So, von Johnson got involved in a children’s drawing competition at a local Munich television station where kids were encouraged to design a suitable girlfriend for Pumuckl, with the winner getting an invute to the nuptials.

But Ellis Kaut, the creator of the Pumuckl legacy, has asked the court to issue a restraining order against von Johnson that would prevent her from taking part in the televised contest. Kaut wants to “avoid the impression that von Johnson has any influence on the further development of the Kobold’s story,” according to the German daily Welt Online.

A sexless ghost, or the Inner Self?

For Kaut, the Kobold’s priorities are clear: “Pumuckl is and always will be a descendant of the Klabauter, that is, a ghost,” she said, adding that “ghosts generally don’t have a distinct sex.” Kaut’s lawsuit rests on the premise that granting the little Kobold a sex life goes against its “literary character.”

Von Johnson countered that, as an art therapist, she understands “how important it is for the psychological growth and healing of a person to find one’s own holistic self,” her lawyer said. For von Johnson, drawing with children enables her to “bring them into contact with their inner unknown character.”

It is not the first legal squabble between Kaut and von Johnson, more affectionately known as “Pumuckl’s mothers.” In September last year, the disgruntled designer successfully sued the Bavarian broadcasting service, which must now pay von Johnson additional royalties and obtain her approval before airing the animated movie “Meister Eder und sein Pumuckl” (“Master Eder and His Pumuckl”).

Ellis Kaut’s Pumuckl made its debut on German television in 1962. For two decades, von Johnson animated the friendly sprite, with its characteristically oversized ears, hands and feet. As of the early 80s, she passed this task on to her son-in-law Brian Bagnall. This happened around the same time that Pumuckl’s popularity began to take off.

Pumuckl is a Klabautermann, a mythological water sprite that haunts the ships of sailors and fishermen on the Baltic Sea. It is a mischievous and merry creature that is considered a sign of good luck -- unless it reveals itself to the crew, in which case the ship is doomed.

Time will tell if the plucky Kobold himself gets lucky or not.