Rankl was born in Gaaden, near Vienna, the fourteenth child of a peasant couple.
He saw few signs of humanity: smoke from distant chimney-stacks, and an old peasant couple who passed him going in the opposite direction.
"Juha" tells of a peasant couple whose simple life is ruined by a predatory interloper from the city.
A hedgehog-like baby is born to a peasant couple.
Near, a peasant couple had three sons; the older two were indulged, and the youngest always had to give way to his brothers.
Suzanne is raised by a loving peasant couple on a farm in the remote countryside.
Only now the simply peasant couple no longer wish to give them up.
In the first story, Thumbling, a poor childless peasant couple wishes for a child "no matter how small" aloud.
On the morning of the fifth of September, in uniform, his revolver on the table, the doctor gave consultation to an old peasant couple.
It depicts a wooden cross stamped with the hammer and sickle, on which a peasant couple is crucified.
