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"Behringer's book is one of the most vivid and
dramatic pieces of microhistory I have ever read. . . .
The fluent and fast-moving narrative will appeal to many
readers with its human interest aspect. The author places
this story in its historical contexts, from folklore to
the Counter Reformation, so that the fate of Chonrad
Stoekhlin illuminates rural life in early modern
Germany."
--Peter Burke, Emmanuel College, University
of Cambridge
Shaman of Oberstdorf tells the fascinating story
of a sixteenth-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 rumors of prophets and
healers, of spirits and specters, 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. As an introduction to modern German witchcraft
research, as a study of the local impact of the Counter
Reformation, and as a historical investigation into popular
culture, Behringer's book has the advantage of telling a
compelling individual story amidst larger discussions of
peasant raptures, magical healing, and unfamiliar alpine
notions such as the "furious army," the "wild hunt," popular
bonfire festivals, and eerie echoes of pagan Wotan.
Wolfgang Behringer is one fo the premier historians of
German witchcraft, not only because of his mastery of the
subject at the regional level, but because he also writes
movingly, forcefully, and with an eye for the telling
anecdote. Reminiscent of such classics as The Cheese and
the Worms and The Return of Martin Guerre,
Shaman of Oberstdorf is an unforgettable look at
early modern German folklore and culture.
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"This story is better documented, more sophisticated in
interpretation, and in some respects better told than that
of the Italian miller, Menocchio, that Carlo Ginzburg
presents in his justly famous The Cheese and the
Worms. Behringer is the premier historian of the
witchcraft panic in this part of Germany and has a vast
command of local knowledge that enables him to cotextualize
this gripping story in an extemely concrete and colorful
way."
--Thomas A. Brady Jr., University of
California, Berkeley
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