Shaman of Oberstdorf: Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms of the Night (Studies in Early Modern German History)

by Wolfgang Behringer

H.C.Erik Midelfort (Translator)

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Book cover for Shaman of Oberstdorf

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This is the story of a 16th-century mountain village caught in a panic of its own making. Four hundred years ago, the Bavarian alpine town of Oberstdorf, surrounded by the towering peaks of the Vorarlberg, was awash in legends and rumours of prophets and healers, of spirits and spectres, of witches and soothsayers. The book focuses on the life of a horse wrangler named Chonrad Stoeckhlin (1549-1587), whose extraordinary visions of the afterlife and enthusiastic practice of the occult eventually led to his death - and to the death of a number of village women - for crimes of witchcraft. In addition to recounting Stoeckhlin's tale, this book examines the larger world of alpine myths concerning ghosts and other spirits of the night, documenting how these myths have been abused by German political movements over the years.
  • ISBN10 0813917883
  • ISBN13 9780813917887
  • Publish Date 29 August 1998
  • Publish Status Active
  • Out of Print 25 July 2013
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint University of Virginia Press
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 224
  • Language English