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Shaman of Oberstdorf

Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms of the Night

Wolfgang Behringer author HCErik Midelfort translator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of Virginia Press

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Shaman of Oberstdorf cover

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.

ISBN: 9780813918532

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

224 pages